J. R. R. Tolkien (review)

J. R. R. Tolkien's early life was beset by tragedy, as he lost his father at age three and his mother when he was a teen, facts that Wallner intersperses with a portrait of Ronald as an eager student with a love for nature but an even more persistent fascination with words. She hits the highlights of his life and career, eliding some details that might have been of interest to her audience, such as his close friendship with C. S. Lewis and Roger Lancelyn Green. She also omits mention of his Christian faith, which was clearly of great importance in his life and work. The picture that does emerge, though, is very likely spot-on; Tolkien is portrayed as a gentle, bookish sort of fellow who loved his family and lived his most vivid adventures in his imagination. The pictures that accompany Wallner's text, however, tend to undermine the sense and dignity of the words and the gravitas of Tolkien's own work, as they turn Tolkien's life journey into a board game that features cards that trivialize the experiences of losing parents and friends, as well as being kept from one's beloved. Cartoonish watercolors in sweet candy colors feature prettified scenes and figures that resemble, if somewhat stiffly, the people they represent, but hobbits, dragons, and trolls are rendered childlike and rather clownish in their features, utterly unlike the characters Tolkien imagined and populated his worlds with. While the effect is decidedly child-friendly, readers may suffer confusion if they jump from this biography into their own reading of The Hobbit with the expectation that that text will be similarly mild and age-appropriate.