You never know whose life you’re going to touch. I trace a line between my own love of reading and writing to a relatively obscure (at the time) fantasy series read to us by my father, back to his department secretary, and eventually to Oxford professor and World War One veteran JRR Tolkien, born 130 years ago today.
Tolkien Birthday Toast: raise a glass to the Professor in honour of his 130th birthday
If book sales, movie earnings, popular culture and Peter Jackson’s knighthood are any indication, millions of other people also have a similar connection to an academic whose books were once dismissed as simple tales for children.
They were wrong about that.
Hobbits and hippies: Tolkien and the counterculture – BBC Culture
I’m taking this as a reminder to do my best. As a children’s author, chef, engineer, teacher or whatever else you may be, you never know what impact you may have.
For myself, I hope that impact stirs even a little of the positive impact Middle-Earth had for me.
The Professor!
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J.R. Johnson 
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