Last month I wrote a post titled Harry Potter in English. In the post I shared the fact that I have picked up copies of the first book, in different languages, as I have traveled around the world.

Tonight I will share a little bit about one of the copies.

This is the first one that I picked up in a different language. I was in Mexico City teaching a course and found this at Sanborns.  You can see the price tag and find that I paid 149 pesos for the book. At the current exchange rate that would be about $10.

Here then is the title: Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal by J. K. Rowling. The title is based off of the UK title instead of the US title, which it should be.

However, the front cover art is similar to the US cover instead of the UK cover. See Harry Potter in English for the covers.

I like this cover better though as it is more wide open and better shows the different elements of the story that are featured on the cover.

The back cover of the book is similar to the back cover of the UK edition. This is a good think as I like the back cover of the UK edition better than the US edition. I get the best of both English covers rolled into one Spanish cover.

I like this rendition of Professor Dumbledore better than the UK edition though. It is less colorful, but more how I picture him from the story.

The book was published when only the first three books were translated into Spanish. The back cover lists the three titles in the series:

La piedra filosofal

La camara secreta

El prisionero de Azkaban

If you are familiar with the titles in English you can learn a few Spanish words.

piedra = stone

camara = chamber

prisionero = prisoner

I do know quite a few Spanish words, so there are some parts of the book that I can sort of read.

However, the book is for looking cool on the shelf rather than reading.

As I write this tonight I also think of another post I wrote about Harry Potter. Here is one of the pictures from my Platform 9¾ post.

Could you read this book?

Steven