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It’s fairly easy to write in praise of some unfairly neglected genius, but what can you say about the best-known author in the world? Perhaps, though, J. K. Rowling’s skills as a writer have been obscured by the whole Harry Potter phenomenon.

Many people think that writing for children is easy. It isn’t. Adults will read a book because they feel they ought to, because it makes them feel clever and “well-read”. If a book doesn’t grab a child, forget it. Anyone who has witnessed a child lose him or herself in a 700-page Potter book on holiday, ignoring pool, beach and mealtimes, will know that children read them simply because they love them, and because Rowling has an extraordinary ability to hold the reader until the very last page. She has created a world that children want to enter and never leave.

Like all the classic British children’s fantasy writers, Rowling sets the epic firmly in the domestic, everyday world. Yes, she uses some familiar elements (show me the “literary” author who hasn’t borrowed themes from previous literary authors), such as wizards, witches, boarding schools and orphans destined for greatness, but she builds a new and very detailed world out of them. With its satires on politics, education and the media, though, her world is far from simplistic. These are well-told stories that will enthral, amuse, scare and delight children for generations to come.

One to read: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (1997) — because you should always start a good story at the beginning.

Charlie Higson is a performer and writer of comedy, and a bestselling children’s author. In the mid-1990s, with Paul Whitehouse, he created the popular television comedy The Fast Show. Some years later, Ian Fleming Publications commissioned Higson to write the Young Bond series. The fourth instalment, Hurricane Gold, was published last year.

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