The novel won most of the British book awards that were judged by children and other awards in the US. The book reached the top of the New York Times list of best-selling fiction in August 1999 and stayed near the top of that list for much of 1999 and 2000. It has been translated into at least sixty-seven other languages and has been made into a feature-length film of the same name, as have all six of its sequels.