They were written for children, but I make it a point to read what kids are reading. Likewise I make it a point to read works being touted as good literature, regardless of the intended audience. (I was a lit major in another life. I spent an entire year immersed in Shakespeare, lol...and quite a bit of time immersed in World and English lit as well.) I read the Harry Potter books when they first came out, at the same time all the kids did..how could I not?
I read the Chronicles of Narnia as a child, and I still enjoy them.
I've read the trilogy of the rings, a few times....and I think The Hobbit was actually written for a younger crowd. Yes, I knew Tolkein and Lewis were friends.
I don't find them so dissimilar...they both wrote from a Christian viewpoint, and their works have the same thread running through them...there is an Ultimate Truth, that there is evil, and that good must persevere, in the face of great adversity and pain...
"British author Colin Duriez, who wrote the article
"Tollers and Jack" in issue #78 of Christian History, explains why this is so in his forthcoming book [ame="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1587680262/christianitytoda"]
Tolkien and C. S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship[/ame]. Duriez tells the story of how these two brilliant authors met, discovered their common love for mythical tales, and pledged to bring such stories into the mainstream of public reading taste. Tolkien and Lewis shared the belief that through myth and legend—for centuries the mode many cultures had used to communicate their deepest truths—a taste of the Christian gospel's "True Myth" could be smuggled past the barriers and biases of secularized readers. "
"Early in their relationship, in 1936, after Tolkien had written the children's story The Hobbit, the two men had a momentous conversation about their desire to bring such stories to a wider audience (see below, at the end of this interview, for Duriez's re-creation of that conversation). They actually decided to divide the territory—Lewis would take "space travel," Tolkien "time travel."
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/news/2003/aug29.html