Hec, is your copy of Howl's Moving Castle by any chance a trade paperback? I've found hardcover available online and mass market PB locally, but I'm looking for a trade, if I can find it.

We didn't have a graduation ceremony -- do most UK high schools?

I've never heard of one. Public (which means private, 'murricans) Schools mostly have some kind of prize day, but at state school you just set off the fire alarm after your last exam and go to the pub.

So there's no Hogwarts-ceremony-closure type reason for Harry to be anywhere near Hogwarts next book, then? He's missed two Quidditch Cup matches in as many books, and the House Cup prize day thing hasn't been an issue for a couple books. No tidy school year event to close out with...

So only the fact that Hogwarts has figured so prominently in the existing 6 books would call for any of Book 7 to be there.

We didn't have a graduation ceremony -- do most UK high schools? The following autumn they did have an awards ceremony, though.

What ita said. You graduate from University. At High School there's an awards ceremony, but there is nothing remotely beginning to consider approaching the hooplah of graduation in the US and Canada. It's just - you finish school. And then you find out how you did, in the holidays, when the results come out. And then you can go back and get handed your certificates at Speech Day, which is for the whole school, in which people are getting various prizes for things. At my school, anyway. Hell, I was in Canada by then, so I missed Speech Day, and it never crossed my mind to consider that a big deal.

So if you want some sort of public hoopla for your school achievements, you have to go *back* to school after you graduate?

How strangely poetic. Because I can only imagine mocking people who are so invested in their high school career that they'd actually go back after a few months to get the accolades. Unless there was tangible benefits to the awards.

I love the British mind. Did Canada start doing this under influence from America, I wonder?

I'd have gone back if I'd been in the country. It's much less hoopla than a graduation ceremony. Which it seems are had at the drop of the hat in the US.

At our school there were tangible benefits - the awards were gift certificates.

But I *liked* high school, and I'd have enjoyed the opportunity to see folks again, and find out how they were liking their first little bits of university, even without picking up my Maths prize.

At High School there's an awards ceremony, but there is nothing remotely beginning to consider approaching the hooplah of graduation in the US and Canada.

According to my mother, there was a big deal for grade and high school graduations in America when she went to school back in the early-mid 20th century because it was not uncommon for that to be the end of any schooling that a person received. It was really only after WWII that college became an option for the masses. I suspect we kept the graduation ceremonies for the lower schools because -- dear me -- we do seem to love them. I see that in some places we have grad "ceremonies" for the little tykes when they leave pre-school.

I barely went to my graduation, skipped the baccalaureate or whatever the prayer meeting thing was called, and wouldn't have returned for an awards day.

But yeah, in the US now there are kindergarten graduations, elementary school graduations. It's very strange. I guess for my high school, most students went no farther and didn't get any awards, so they had to have some ceremony.

Again, ita speaks for me.

But yeah, in the US now there are kindergarten graduations, elementary school graduations.

Okay, this is bleeding insane.

There are an insane number of graduations over here now. And people have parties for them all. Just ridiculous.