I think this guy is right on.
Rowling has nothing on Tolkien.
Rowling has little on C.S.Lewis if you ask me. Lewis wrote with a bigger vocabulary and I think better plots, and yet was as easy to get into for kids.
Even so, Tolkien is a little much for the Rowling audience. My girl is 8 and reads the Potter and Lewis books and their ilk; she had trouble starting T.H.White and definitely won't do well with Tolkien yet.
But she likes Terry Pratchett and Cards "Enders Game" - go figure.
Not everyone thinks that Tolkien is all that great/readable.
Rowling has nothing on Tolkien.
Agreed, but they are coming from two completely different places. While I love Tolkein, let's face it, to really "get it," with Tolkein, it takes some work. Tokein actually created middle earth because he felt that England had been "cheated" by having no indiginous (sp?) mythology. Sure, there's Beowulf, but that doesn't really compare with the Norse, Greek, or Roman mythos, does it?
His was a decades long work to come up with an entire mythos.
Rowling wrote a story about a little wizard.
They're both wonderful (IMHO), but in entirely different ways. And I'm one of those guys who "poo-poo'd" the whole "Harry Potter thing" while the LOTR movies were coming out. I never even saw one of the movies until after the Return of the King movie was released. I had no interest in the HP movies or books. But I saw the first movie on cable, thought it was pretty good, decided to read the book, and I was hooked!
Mark
Funny. I've heard Tolkein praised for decades, and
I had high school students who read everything he
wrote. So I'm not knocking his ability to create
"another dark world" for people to wander through.
Yet, I've tried many times to read his stuff and
just can't get into his characters. Hobbits and
Efts are ok for those who enjoy them, but I prefer
my main characters to be at least somewhat on my
level of being; i.e. human! <>g<> OTOH, I couldn't
get into Watership Down or that spider heroine either.
I've come to chalk it up to my flawed taste.
As for Rowling vs Tolkein...I find Harry and his
friends most satisfying, enabling me to lapse
back to my youth emotionally and mentally. It's
a real trip! Most kids have an Hermione and Ron
in their cache of memories. How great it would
be if every kid also had a Dumbledore and a Dobby
tucked away in his childhood!