Tim and the Hidden people and JK Rowling

[NorhamGardens]

JK Rowling is a similar age to me and probably read similar books as a child. Not saying she has deliberately lifted anything but lots must have been in her subconscious mind.

I am shocked, after re-reading the Tim series recently, how it is shot through with Harry Potter similarities.

Carriages with winged horses that transport people to a Hogwart's like castle, these are invisible to some.

Tim looks similar to Harry and rides a broomstick.

Owls to take messages. I think this is so.

Tim's rather unloving Aunt floats to the ceiling and almost, rather mischievously, is going to float away until someone has a moment of conscience. She is a 'muggle' (although not by name) someone who does not know/see the magic.

Tim is a rather an unloved orphan, who lives alone in a small room.

There are other references in books that were around and read widely around the same time. One of the references was I think in Milly Molly Mandy, of all books, where a telephone box whizzes down through the ground.

Am sure there must be more, Worst Witch, etc.

Perhaps the skill in writing well/coming up with a new idea for children is to piece together lots of different sources to come up with an original tale?

I don't think that J K Rowling is a very good author personally - or at least I think that there are many many better children's authors who don't get anything like the sales/adulation she has received. I've read a couple of critiques that have suggested a fair amount of reusing of ideas by JK, but I don't think this is necessarily a problem. I think many of the best authors are inspired by existing stories, myths, fairy tales etc and don't have a problem with that at all - some of my favourite books are retellings of various historical stories or mythologies, but they add their own twists, and most importantly have real believable characters that grow and learn (I think this is particularly important for children's books because it's such a central theme of childhood). Blatent lifting is a problem though, as it's really stealing from someone else.

They remind me of a Diana Wynn Jones book, but not to the extent you describe. Who wrote Tim and the Hidden people? It sounds rather good :o

a telephone box whizzing around in Milly Molly Mandy? Really?