This paper discusses the approaches and techniques used to translate vocatives and culture-specific items (CSIs) in the Indonesian translation of J.K.Rowling`s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer`s Stone. The paper identifies a number of translation techniques and considers their effectiveness or otherwise in dealing with the linguistic challenges of translating a humorous children`s story that is embedded in a specific culture. While it is argued that in translating the vocatives the translator`s approach tends towards foreignizing, and in translating the CSIs a more domesticating approach is used, it is acknowledged that a translator`s choice to foreignize or domesticate may be constrained by external circumstances such as publisher`s protocols, the norms and mores of the target culture and ‘the position of children`s books in the literary polysystem’ (Shavit 1981: 172).