Day 15: Someone you admire

Before I tell you whom I admire, I want to show you what I ate for lunch:


I had a VERY orange lunch. Ham and cheese (with Doritos) on a bun, Doritos on the side, a Carmel-only Milky Way mini-candy bar, peach yogurt, carrots with ranch dressing, juice, and a mandarin orange. We also have some beautiful daffodils sitting on our counter that added to the mood. A pretty healthy lunch, and yummy to! Not to mention colorful. Lunch is my favorite meal of the day.
Don't the daffodils look like they are praising the Lord? =)


Now onto the person I admire.


John Ronald Reuel Tolkien.
More simply known as J.R.R. Tolkien.


Tolkien is most well known for the Lord of the Rings series and it's prequel, The Hobbit.


I picked up my family's copy of The Hobbit the other day because I wanted to re-read it before the movie comes out on December 14. I thought it would take a long time to read The Hobbit because Tolkien's style can be a bit confusing and descriptive at times, but I read to first two chapters in a day and I think I might have to re-re-read it sometime in the fall again before the movie comes out!
I had forgotten how wonderful The Hobbit is. I've only read it once, and technically, I wasn't reading it then. My dad read the book to me about four years ago.


(Cover picture is of Bilbo riding in a barrel. Drawing is by Tolkien.)

As I was telling a friend, reading Tolkien is like diving into a pool filled with rich chocolate. He describes things in such detail and so well; it's as if you were actually there.


I admire Tolkien (shown above - doesn't he look like a Hobbit with his pipe and smile? That's my absolute favorite picture of Tolkien) because he was able to create an entire world with a complete history and with complete languages. To create different worlds to send readers into is a dream that all authors have and Tolkien has done it beautifully.
I find it hard to believe that The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogy were written less than a hundred years ago. So much stuff that has been written in recent years is so horrible.... Although I think already mentioned that in another post.
His writing style, complicated plots (which I absolutely love), loveable - not to mention believable and incredibly developed - characters, and creativity are not the only things I admire about J.R.R. Tolkien.
I absolutely LOVE it that he wrote books for his children.
Many people do not know about the books he wrote for his four children.
One of such books, Roverandom, was written for his son who lost a toy dog. The story is baed on the toy's adventures away from his master. Another book, Mr. Bliss, is a fun, not to mention colorful, book about a man and his adventures with his new car.
Something else I admire about Tolkien is that he drew as well as wrote and illustrated many scenes from the Lord of the Rings.
Perhaps the most wonderful thing about Tolkien is that he was a devout Catholic.

J.R.R. Tolkien was born in 1892 and served in World War 1 where he got trench fever and was invalided home.
Later in life he became a professor at Oxford college where he taught language and literature, among other things.
He was a part of the informal literary group called Inklings. The Inklings was a group of men who met together and discussed fiction, fantasy, and each others works. C.S. Lewis (author of Adventures in Narnia, Out of the Silent Planet, Screwtape Letters and other good books) was also a part of Inklings and he and Tolkien were good friends.

J.R.R. Tolkien is one of my favorites authors and I strive to be like him in my writing.
I greatly admire him not only as an author, but as a person.