One of the first serious books I read was Lord of the Rings. It had a profound effect on me, influencing my book choices over the nest twenty or thirty years and opening up a fantastic world of imagination for me. Not only did the book bring to life a world of fantasy for me, but the quality of writing and the descriptive language enhanced my love for the written word and inspired me to work on the quality of my own writing.

Years later, as my own children began to grow and read we came across a set of books that had a similar effect on my children; not only that, but the books also brought our family closer as the time we read the books became ‘our’ time. Harry Potter, while probably not written as well as Lord of the Rings holds many similar qualities:

• Rowling has the ability to tell a great story, just has Tolkien does.
• Rowling and Tolkien both created real characters who we learn to love and suffer with.
• The worlds they both created are real and tangible, with flora, fauna, creatures and monsters that are out of mythology, but seem real and dangerous.

Lord of the Rings is a classic, and most literature experts would not disagree. Does Harry Potter deserve the same accolade? Is Harry Potter better than Lord of the Rings?

(To assist in your votes, please see my synopsis of each series below).

Harry Potter is a classic story about the struggles of good when faced with ultimate evil; it’s not quite that simple in Harry Potter though, as good and evil has varying shades of gray that seem to blur the line between the two and make you think about the concepts of good and evil.

As we watch Harry Potter, an orphaned boy living with his cruel Uncle and Aunty, we watch a confused young man discovering his magical abilities and trying to come to terms with a world that is more fantastic and dangerous than he could ever have imagined.

As he attends the Wizarding school of Hogwarts, Harry meets many characters that begin to change him as he finds danger, deceit and evil facing him at every turn. He forms a bond with Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger and in doing so, begins to learn more about kinship and love.

His nemesis Voldermort is always present in his mind and seems intent on Harry’s destruction; Voldermort represents everything that Harry despises – deceit, dishonor, evil, power monger and above all the desire to crush and control people.

While at school Harry finds many enemies, including the spiteful Draco Malfoy and Professor Snape who through his own personal hatred of Harry seems intent on ensuring Harry fails at everything he does.

In the seven books of the Harry Potter series, we follow Harry as he moves through each year at Hogwarts school. Every year he embarks on dangerous quests that test his prowess at magic, but also test his moral fortitude.

The books are more about the bonds of friendship and love, and the power these have to achieve anything rather than the simple action plots that are prevalent throughout – they tell a tale of a boy who grows through diversity.

How do you sum up a work of art that transcends normal writing and becomes a pure literature classic in a few words; the simple answer is that you can’t. I can give a brief outline of the plot, and comment on some of the great characters, but this is just scratching the surface of Lord of the Rings.

Lord of the Rings is written in such a manner that it jumps out at you and becomes real. The descriptions are so vivid that you can get an understanding of the world in which the book takes place. The songs and poems are so well written that you can imagine a real scholar in Middle Earth writing them, and you can feel the passion of the orators as they speak or sing these works of art. This is what makes Lord of the Rings so good; it’s not simply a book, it’s more like a voice over to a real living breathing world.

When we join Bilbo Baggins’s 111^th birthday party we feel as if we a really there. We watch as he reluctantly gives away his heirloom to his nephew Frodo, and watch in fear as we begin to understand how dangerous this heirloom really is.

The heirloom is a Ring; and as Gandalf, the great wizard soon discovers, it is the One Ring created by Dark Lord Sauron to control all the other magical rings in Middle Earth.

Meanwhile, Frodo, under the advice of Gandalf begins a journey to take the ring to Rivendell so that its fate can be decided; the council cannot decide what to do with the ring, with various factions arguing about what should occur, so Frodo eventually stands tall and offers to take the Ring to the cracks of doom to be destroyed.

And so the Fellowship of the Ring is formed. The fellowship is a strange one, joining together several different races with a common cause. First we have the hobbits – Frodo, Pippin, Merry and Sam; a dwarf – Gimli; an elf – Legolas; a wizard – Gandalf; and man – Boromir and Aragorn.

As we follow the intrepid band we again see the importance of the bonds of friendship and how these often can be torn apart under stress and when there are conflicting desires. Ultimately, the goal is to thwart the progress of evil; Lord Sauron is intent on recovering the ring and uses everything in his power to do this. With his allies and those under his power he seeks to destroy the fellowship while also gaining control over Middle Earth.

His most faithful and dangerous servants are the Nazgul – they were once proud men, the holders of magic rings now under the power of the dark lord – as ring wraiths they are evil and powerful and perhaps are the greatest danger to the quest.

What follows is a story of passion, love, loss and ultimately the struggle of good to overcome evil despite the odds against them. In a world that feels real, with real dangers we find ourselves immersed in a truly classic story.