Hunger Games overtakes Potter as Amazon's top book series

By the CNN Wire Staff

updated 10:46 PM EDT, Fri August 17, 2012

(CNN) -- Girl wonder beats boy wizard.

The Hunger Games trilogy has surpassed the Harry Potter books to become the best-selling series on Amazon.com, the company announced Friday.

"Since debuting in 2008, Katniss Everdeen and the Hunger Games have taken the world by storm, much as Harry Potter did a decade before," said Sara Nelson, the editorial director of books and Kindle at Amazon, which is the largest bookseller in the United States.

"Interestingly, this series is only three books versus Harry Potter's seven, and to achieve this result in just four years is a great testament to both the popularity of the work and, we think, the growth in reading digitally during that time," she said.

Katniss is the Hunger Games heroine, whose prowess with arrows and boys has made her the envy of millions of fans. She is the star of the books in Suzanne Collins' trilogy, "The Hunger Games," "Catching Fire" and "Mockingjay."

Author J.K. Rowling penned the Harry Potter series about a boy wizard by the same name and his friends at Hogwarts, a school for witches and wizards. She is currently working on her first novel for adults.

Both series got a big boost from films based off the books.

CNN's Stacy Cowley contributed to this report.