[.ca] Great Life Stories: J.R.R. Tolkien: Creator of Languages ... (ISBN 0531122530)

A great biography:
This slim and attractive book is a wonderful biography of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, the author of the classic works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Starting with his birth in South Africa in 1892, the book follows his life, focusing on the love of languages that he maintained throughout his life. Along the way, the reader is treated to many colorful pictures and informative sidebars. Although this biography was written with the younger read (9-12) in mind, in truth it is a great biography for anyone interested in J.R.R. Tolkien. First my thirteen-year-old daughter read this book, then my wife did, and now I have; and I must say that we all enjoyed it. The book is easy to understand, but does not skimp on information. Overall, I have no hesitation in recommending this book to anyone interested in J.R.R. Tolkien.

Padded and uninteresting:
Doris Lynch boldly goes where lots of authors have gone before in "J.R.R. Tolkien: Creator of Languages and Legends." Recycled, simplistic and filled with information that is pretty much irrelevant, this particular biography of Tolkien is a dud. Lynch tells of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, perhaps the greatest and most famed fantasy writer of all time: his early life in South Africa, the premature deaths of both of his parents, and his career at Oxford. What is more, she describes his love of languages and his creation of a whole fictional world -- Middle-Earth, a fictional-mythical world of elves, wizards, dwarves and hobbits. Even though everything from this book has been written before, Doris Lynch seems to have trouble filling her extremely slim book with enough material. There are some interesting pictures (including the usual stills from the Peter Jackson trilogy), although even the pictures seem padded. One of them is merely a photograph of the "Fellowship" title page. What's more, Tolkien's life is definitely interesting enough to keep readers enthralled, Lynch apparently feels she has to throw in detailed factoids that add absolutely nothing. "To Mexico With Love" has nothing to do with Tolkien, except that it's about the British in World War I. Moreover, her factoids are written condescendingly, as if she's speaking to extremely young, extremely dumb children. Similarly, it adds nothing to have Lynch describe the mechanics of a periscope, or the meaning behind the word "diabetes," and an essentially useless chart of "Some Creatures of Middle-Earth." For example, Lynch very helpfully tells us that orcs are "goblin-like creatures" who like the dark. At the same time, she does not include important details, like the age of legal independence (which was twenty-one) in Tolkien's youth. Doris Lynch gives no new insights in "Creator of Languages and Legends," and her only contribution is to pad what people already knew. Her condescending style and bloated info make this a mercifully brief bore.