Posted by Robert Hill on July 08, 2002 at 09:22:28 from 195.92.168.163 user eclrh.
In Reply to: Books - size & wordcount posted by John Wilson on July 07, 2002 at 02:57:11:
John Wilson writes
> But they all seem quite massive compared with the current childrens &
> teenagers books. Don’t today’s children have enough time for longer
> books, or can’t they last for several sessions with a book?
I think Ransome's books have always been longer than most children's
(and quite a few adult) books.
Here are my ** very rough ** estimates of the number of words in the
four Harry Potter books published to date:
Philosopher's Stone 62,000
Chamber of Secrets 69,500
Prisoner of Azkaban 88,500
Goblet of Fire 158,000
These are based on an estimate of 7.5 words per line; I obtained this
figure by randomly choosing a half page which seemed to have a mixture
of description and conversation, and counting the words in it.
I think it is more likely that I've estimated low than high, as on
opening the books one usually gets the impression of fairly dense blocks
of text. On the other hand, the assumed figure of words per line also
needs to allow for occasional displayed material and occasional
asterisk lines between certain paragraphs.
I have allowed for chapter beginnings and ends (0.75 pages per chapter)
and for the wider spacing of lines in Goblet of Fire (35 lines per page
against 40).
Philip Pullman's trilogy seems quite long, I must get round to reading
that one day.