Charlie Bone...Harry's clone?

[Inkwolf]

I just wondered whether anyone else was reading the Charlie Bone series. I'm listening to it on audio, and enjoying it very much, but certain elements in the books make it feel...like...well, like someone started out to write some sort of James-and-Lily fanfic and it was so good that they took it legit.

Some similarities to Harry Potter: Charlie Bone discovers he has mysterious powers when he's 9 or 10 years old. He has bushy, unmanageable black hair. His father is dead, and he is living at the expense of his hostile relatives. He goes to a special school for kids with unusual gifts. The second book involves a 'time twister' magical device which can send you through time.

Some differences: the tone is far more menacing and less cuddly than the Harry books. (Bloor's Academy...imagine if Hogwarts were much smaller, included Muggle arts students, was run by Lucius Malfoy, and that Draco was several years older than Harry and was Head Boy. :p Though Manfred Bloor is much more threatening than spoiled-brat Draco could ever be.) The father's side of Charlie's family are mainly nasty, tough old women...their family has a tradition of having members who are gifted in one way or another. Charlie's mother and Grandma Maisy live with him, to help offset the menace of the evil Grandma Bone and his terrible aunts. People aren't generically magical in Charlie's world, they each have a specific ability...Charlie's is to hear photographs. He can hear what was going on when the picture was taken.

So, anyone else who's read them--what do you think? Harry clone, or pure coincidence? Any other nominees for Harry Clone books?

[Moonlight]

I think it's just a coincidence. If we look really closely we could find that any fantasy book has a lot in common with HP. Here the differences outwiegh the similarities. :)

But this book sounds really interesting. I might try it.

I can't really think of any Harry Clones from the top of my head...

[Auror Williamson]

This oddly sounds to me to be a copy-cat story where the author wants to cash in on J.K. Rowling's success.

I don't think this is a mere conincidence. Yeah sure, the two might have unmanageable black hair, and they might be living without a parent, but the other examples are just too closely related to be simple coincidence.

[thethirdman]

There's just too many parallels for it to be an original story. I smell another lawsuit. Seriously, what makes people think that they can get away with that?

[Tirwen Lupin]

If the Charlie Bones thing was published after HP, I have little doubt that the author got ideas from JKR. It may have started out as some sort of fanfic, but then the author deicided that it was good enough to publish it as their own.

As for other "Harry clones", I remember reading somewhere that the "Books of Magic" series had a lot of similarities as HP, though I haven't read them.

"Witch Week" by Diana Wynne Jones has some simliarities as well (most notably a wizard school), but there aren't that many. And there's no claiming she imitated HP, because her book was out years before JKR's was. :lol:

[Inkwolf]

I don't think this is a mere conincidence. Yeah sure, the two might have unmanageable black hair, and they might be living without a parent, but the other examples are just too closely related to be simple coincidence.

Actually, there are plenty of book about kids in boarding schools, magical kids, and kids living without parents....it was the messy black air that really made the similarities seem like more than similarities to me.

Oh, by the way, the books I'm talking about are:
Midnight for Charlie Bone
and
Charlie Bone and the Time Twister
by Jenny Nimmo.

It looks like being a series....there's a plot point that's so obvious Charlie hasn;t seen it yet (though I'm sure every reader is screaming at Charlie about the obvious.) I'm only partway into the second book,and there have been veiled hints to Charlie that he's special for some reason. Don't want to say too much that might be spoilerish, though, since they are still good books and you might want to read them. :)

[Cat]

I've never read the books you're talking about, but I'll put forward my unknowing and pointless opinion anyway.

I've found that almost all books that I've read that have been alleged at least once to have certain aspects ripped off from another book only possess superficial connections that are probably coincidental.

I also don't think any author who wanted to copy something from another author would stoop to details such as hair. That's obvious, pointless and easily remedied. I believe that if the author had copied other aspects, they would have bothered to change the hair. That would be sneaky. That would show that they were conscious of the similarities enough to want to differentiate on such a minor detail.

[Hammi]

I can't deny they're similar, but I think if you look hard enough you can claim they are Harry Potter rip offs. Its possible the author is just trying to cash in on the wizard mania too

[Masterfroggy]

As with all good ideas, several people have them and a lot of times it happens at the same time, in the publishing world new authors send work to agents who are meant to read them and find the best place to get them published (or not in most cases).

When a new style of writing comes out or a new subject hits the streets, Agent will look through their held works for similar material, if the find one they then push for that to be published. As agents only get paid for published works, most will let their authors ride on the publics demand for wizarding books and this is why you get a rash of book all published with in a few years on the same topic.

With some authors their unpublished manuscripts can sit in an Agents draw for years, suddenly a popular wave of one style of writing will occur and the market demands drive agents to try and pick up some of the money generated on the backs of other writers popularity

[Ellen]

Actually, I think the Charlie Bone books are part independent story, part spoof of Harry Potter.

Harry's Muggle relatives are cruel and prejudiced and would like nothing better than for Harry to be nonmagical.

Charlie's magical relatives are cruel and prejudiced. They want Charlie to turn out magical.

Harry has no friends in the Muggle world. Hogwarts offers a wonderful escape from his awful life at Privet Drive.

Charlie has friends and can't imagine anything worse than being forced to attend Bloor's academy.

We all know about the Great Hall at Hogwarts.

Charlie is told how neat the hall at Bloor's is - it's where the original owners of the castle used to torture their prisoners.

One of Harry's friends is the Muggleborn Hermione Granger, somewhat socially backward but extremely intelligent, also big on keeping rules.

One of Harry's friends at Bloor's is a nonmagical girl in the acting department (her hair is purple when we first meet her but is subject to change). She is first seen making up a poem mocking school rules. Sort of the anti-Hermione.

One of the evil bad guys is a red haired, weasely looking boy.

If the faculty at Bloor's puts you through some kind of obstacle course in the middle of the night to find a magical object, this isn't because someone else is trying to kill you. It's because the faculty is trying to kill you.

[Inkwolf]

If the faculty at Bloor's puts you through some kind of obstacle course in the middle of the night to find a magical object, this isn't because someone else is trying to kill you. It's because the faculty is trying to kill you.

LOL! :D :lol:

What you say is sort of what I mean, though, Ellen...there are SO many little, tiny, insignificant things that seems like echoes of Harry Potter, warped and changed....the Ruin Game is reminescent of the Third Task....a certain magical creature is involved which also appears in the Harry books ( Werewolf )....the Yewbeam Sisters are like triple Aunt Marge, but with brains and sinister plans for Charlie's magic...

[mugglejoy]

When I read Charlie Bone I thought the same thing... a lot of similarities... but then, they are both fantasies about magical worlds...

Has there been a second Charlie Bone book released yet? Just curious... :)

[London_luv89]

I haven't read those books so I don't know, you people should read Pendragon awesome books!

[Dedalus]

I agree with Cat. If an author was consciously aware of similarities to another book, they'd go against them where they could. So a character would look almost the opposite of the one they're thinking about, in trying not to appear like they're copying. Often similarities occur by accident - or as tribute, of course.

[Inkwolf]

Has there been a second Charlie Bone book released yet? Just curious... :)


Yes, Charlie Bone and the Time Twister. :) (A small, magical item which allows you to travel in time....though you have no control over when you end up.)

[Adalbert Waffling]

Few may know this, but a few years ago an author tried to sue Rowling because J.K. may have copied her book, which was published several years before Harry Potter. The main character was called Larry Potter, lived with his sister Lily,(they were both orphans) and lived in the world of muggles(that is the actual term used in Larry Potter). And there were alot of other terms J.K. used also, many of which I cannot name off the top of my head.

[thethirdman]

Few may know this, but a few years ago an author tried to sue Rowling because J.K. may have copied her book, which was published several years before Harry Potter. The main character was called Larry Potter, lived with his sister Lily,(they were both orphans) and lived in the world of muggles(that is the actual term used in Larry Potter). And there were alot of other terms J.K. used also, many of which I cannot name off the top of my head.

I heard about that. I also heard that the lawsuit was thrown out because the Larry Potter book was terrible and it was decided that only a fool would plagarize (sp) a rotten book. I if wonder that's really true. Probably not.

[Cat]

The lawsuit was thrown out because the only thing that made a case was the word 'Muggle' - and the would-be suer had forged a copyright symbol on an early example of theirs to make it appear that she had copyrighted the word before Ms Rowling had used it.

Most of the lady's connections were just absurd. I'm going to regard the rest as amusing coincidence since hardly anybody has ever read her works and they all say they're flaming awful. I'm not sure the're even available in the UK? I don't believe for a minute that Ms Rowling took a plane over to the US before she began writing and took a couple of names and a nonsense word from an obscure and allegedly terrible book.

[thethirdman]

Maybe she read the book when she was bored and thought, "I can do much better than this." I wish that were true.

[Inkwolf]

I believe that beside the coincidence of names, there was no connection whatever. Stouffer had some creatures called Muggles, but they were not a word for non-magical people.

I always meant to see if i could dig up a copy of Stouffers book for comparison purposes.

If JKR was influenced by anyone, it might have been Dianne Wynne Jones, whose books have a certain Harryish atmosphere to them. I highly recommend the Crestomancy series, Homeward Bounders, and Dark Lord of Derkholm and its sequel, Year of the Griffin.

[Inkwolf]

Well, this thread was brought back up in another thread, so I thought I'd revisit it and add some new info.

Re Nancy Stouffer's book: I got hold of a copy and tried to read it, and frankly it was just so badly-written that I quit after only about ten barf-inducing pages. That's not a biased Rowling-loyalty thing, simply the truth. And Muggles are a race of cutesy-poo babyish-looking post-nuclear mutant people or something like that. There are pictures by the author.

Re: Charlie Bone, I read some of Jenny Nimmo's earlier books, and they mainly tend to be about magic, and have heroes with messy black hair: apparently it's a Welsh trait. They're pretty good books, too.

Garth Nix's 'Keys to the Kingdom' series sounded at the beginning like it might turn out to be a Harry clone, but turned totally different, and quite interesting. :) (Though I didn't get as caught up in that as his Abhorsen trilogy.)

Has anyone read Tanya Grotter? I'm curious, because that's the book that Rowling successfully sued over.

[harryfantotheend]

OMG, thats really funny! i wrote a fanfic and voldemort's servant was Draco, but he called him manfred. Whoa! thats REALLLY scary! (darkmark90 and ravenclawgrl u kno wut im talking bout)

[Cat]

Re Nancy Stouffer's book: I got hold of a copy and tried to read it, and frankly it was just so badly-written that I quit after only about ten barf-inducing pages. That's not a biased Rowling-loyalty thing, simply the truth. And Muggles are a race of cutesy-poo babyish-looking post-nuclear mutant people or something like that. There are pictures by the author.


Has anyone read Tanya Grotter? I'm curious, because that's the book that Rowling successfully sued over.

I've read the revews of Stouffer's books on Amazon. Even people who read them in defiance to Harry don't like them. Poor Stouffer. She can't even attract fans through notoriety, and almost everybody can do that.

I've heard of Tanya Grotter. That was by the barmy man who kept changing his story, wasn't it? He alternated between calling it a parody, calling it 'an answer to Harry Potter' and calling it completely unconnected. The court must have decided that it could not be classified as a parody and therefore had breached copyright. Then the fellow started whingeing like a little boy who'd been caught stealing sweets, claiming that J. K. Rowling was trying to get other authors out of business. Yeah. How would that explain the huge rise in popularity of authors for children?
:rolleyes: <- I love that smiley. So puerile, yet so effective.

I still maintain, though, that there are very few genuine cases of somebody actually ripping another author off without a) being just a case of inspiration or b) being a parody. Artists - and novel writers are artists - tend to be more proud than that.

[ravenclawgrl]

something about Charlie Bone scared me yesterday:

In my english class, we had to write a play. My friends and i wrote a Harry Potter play and in it, Voldemort mistakenly calls Malfoy Manfred, due to his relations with Lucius and not Draco. This was at least two months ago.

I only found this thread yesterday.

My friend directed me onto this yesterday. She said "Go onto Charlie Bone, it's something that has to do with Tale of a Mudblood. (that's our play)"

I think that maybe it did kind of ripoff Harry Potter (and our play, LOL)
because there are a lot of similarities

[darcyhuff]

Yes, Jenny did copy a bit, but there are still LOTS of differences.

[Catgirl]

Has anyone ever watched UBOS? It's a childrens cartoon on CBBC, but I think it's American. I've only seen it a few times, but I believe it's a total rip off of Harry Potter.

The main character (who does not look unlike Ron Weasley) is a boy called Verne who grew up in the muggle world (they call muggles 'morties' and I think that they have called morties mudbloods, but I may be mistaken.) with no knowladge of the wizard world, but he then becomes a wizard.

The main bad guy is a dark lord (Zarlak) who was defeated, but wants to get back to power.

Verne has two best friends, one boy (Gus), one girl (Cassandra), one of whom comes from a long line of witches an wizards. Cassandra is very smart and annoys Verne and Gus, much in the same way Hermione annoys Harry and Ron.

The three main characters are always stopping the dark lord from coming back to power, even though they are only schoolkids.

There is a magical sport, which the main characters excel at.

There are two twins who are purebloods and act exactly like Draco Malfoy. I think their father is supposed to be an important wizard and there may have been suggestions that he was one of Zarlak's supporters when he was in power.

The headteacher is a strict but nice woman who can transform herself into a cat. Not unlike Hogwarts's deputy-head.

The main charcters make friends with a giant at one point.

One of the teachers is a ghost.



I also noticed that there are a couple of simularites with The Worst Witch, but this was before Harry Potter. Ethal Hallow is like a female Draco Malfoy and Mrs Hardbroom is a female Snape. She's a Potions teacher who hates the main character. How more Snape-like could she be?

[Inkwolf]

Whoa, UBOS sounds like a total rip-off! :wow:

Back in the old Mugglenetforums days, the subject of an HP Saturday Morning Cartoon came up, and I had fun writing several seasons worth of possible plot synopsis, based on typical lame cartoon series clichés. Those were lost with Mugglenetforums, but I can't help wondering if the UBOS series has come close to my programming ideas. :p

[Ellen]

Since we're bringing up other books, has anyone read Dogsbody? It's by Diana Wynne Jones, an author I think Rowling likes. The main character has a lot in common with Sirius, except that it's kind of back to front (I didn't really think there could be connection till OotP).

The main character is a magical being named Sirius who is framed for a murder he didn't commit.

As punishment, he's put in the body of a dog.

One of his judges (the story sets you up to change your mind about whether he's good or evil) has a major stutter.

There are two kinds of dogs in British folklore associated with death (that I know of). There are the black dogs like Harry's Sirius. There are also white dogs with red ears. Guess which kind this Sirius is?

Of course, there aren't any references to anything like the Gryffindor lion, but Sirius is renamed Leo and another character says she's always thought of him as a griffen.

He has anger management issues.

There's a character named Remus.

There's a cat named Tibbles.

There's a slightly batty old lady who knows more than she seems to (named Smith, not Figg).

There's a poor orphan taken in by evil relatives. The relatives are not named Dursley. They're called Duffield.

The most evil Duffield is called Duffie not Dudley.

With the Dursleys, Petunia (Harry's blood relation) is the one who seems to have decided to take Harry. Vernon whole heartedly resents him and is the adult who mistreats him the most.

With the Duffields, Mr. Duffield (our orphan, Kathleen's, blood relation) is the one who decided to take her in. Mrs. Duffiled whole heartedly resents this, etc.

Sirius' green eyes are the outward sign of his hidden, major level powers.

A cowardly mouse makes a cameo appearance.

Sirius, at the end of the book (spoiler alert), apparently dies (he's actually been set free), which devastates Kathleen just as much as Sirius' death devastated Harry.

This all sounds very similar, but the actual story resembles Rowling's about as much as a raven resembles a writing desk. Both Siriuses are a lot alike in personality (although Rowling's figures out a lot quicker how he's been framed).

I don't really know what the point of all that is except that I'm dying to find someone else who's read both books.

[Inkwolf]

I read Dogsbody as a child (which makes it considerably PRE- Harry! ;) ) but I don't remember much about it, except that I was disappointed because I thought it would be more of a dog story.

A LOT of Dianne Wynn Jones' books have a lot in common with HP. Read the intro to (I think) The Eight Days of Luke. It tells you about how the main character was probably the only kid who looked forward to the end of summer vacation, because he lives with his nasty aunt and uncle and fat cousin Ronald.

We're not accusing Joanna of anything, of course. :whistle:

[eggplant]

I believe that beside the coincidence of names, there was no connection whatever.

It turns out that not only was Nancy Stouffer wrong when she said she wrote a book about Harry Potter before Rowling but she was a criminal. In the first place it was not a book, it was just a pamphlet, in the second place she never managed to sell a single copy, in the third place her hero was not Harry Potter it was just Harry, she fraudulently altered the evidence and added the word “Potter”, and for that flagrant deception an appeals court agreed she will have to pay a very unusual $50,000 fine. See

http://www.entlawdigest.com/story.cfm?storyID=3094

Eggplant

[Silverlance]

I guess there is a difference between "ripping off" and "Being influenced by". JK has no doubt inspired a lot of writers to dust off their old ideas and go for it. Wizarding and young wizards may become a subgenre before it's all over.

There are aspects of HP that we would be wrong to call original. But that's how story telling works, it grows out of what's already there, but changes and moves and becomes something it wasn't. Any good story teller allows that to happen. A good story teller will allows their influences to influence them, and doesn't worry TOO much about originality. When they do, and they also happen to have a special voice, something like Harry Potter is born.

This is my first post! Hello everybody.

Silverlance

[Inkwolf]

Ouch, I feel almost sorry for her. Does she even HAVE $50,000, lame as her books are?

Edit: Oh, hello, Silverlance, and welcome to the forum! :)

[Moonlight]

A week ago I finally managed to read the first Charlie Bone book, and I enjoyed it immensely!

I did spot the Harry Potter similarities, but I still think they're more of a coincidence than deliberate plagarism. Although I couldn't really see the Lily/James fanfic connection...

[thinkpink38]

I dont know who Charlie Bone is, so cant answer your question. I thought you meant Charlie Brown, I was like huh?! Charlie Brown, maybe we'e not talking about the same person, and obviously we're not, so yeah.

[loony4moony]

Yeah, I read the Charlie Bone books, and I can certainly see the similarities, but I don't think it's plagiarism. There are certain ideas that are just 'stock' in fiction, and a magical school is one of them. There were novels with magic schools before hp, and many shall come after!
I write myself, and it's torture when you have a really good idea and then realise that someone's used it before. It's hardly ever done purposefully, often it's subconscious and you don't even realise that a character or situation is similar to a previous book until you're in too deep. All fiction is influenced by something, and one of the biggest influences on what we write is what we read. It's unavoidable. As Philip Pullman puts it, 'read like a butterfly, write like a bee'! The HP series is full of influences from classic fiction and mythology- in this case, it's not copying, it's inspiration.
Plagiarism IS wrong and if I was JKR, that court case would have been absolutely torturing. It must be horrible to have somebody telling lies about you to the whole world, and maybe that's one of the reasons bk5 took so long.
The Charlie Bone books are certainly a reccomended read...I managed to guess who Charlie's father was about halfway through the first book, and drove my sisters mad because they hadn't guessed yet! :rotfl: Ah, the advantages of being able to spot the blatantly obvious...

[VelvetSkies]

This is what a kid at my table, we call him Dancealot, said:
"Charlie Bone is like Harry Potter for dumb people. Actually, it's pretty good."
He's in GT with us, so I guess it isn't a bad book. Haven't read it, though.

[Inkwolf]

Well, I've started reading the third book, and it's still like reading Harry Potter through some sort of weird, dark, psychotically evil carnival mirror.

Charlie Bone and the Invisible Boy features an invisible boy (surprise!), a woman who can change her appearance at will, a large and dangerous magical snake creature, and a pet rat who shows signs of being an important character. :p Charlie is trying to rescue the invisible boy from Bloor's and reunite him with his brother....which sounds kind of deja vu, if you've read Charlie Bone and the Time Turner.

But I'm not very far yet. :)

[TwilightSky]

It's kind of funny. I really really badly want to write a book, and sometimes I get good ideas. It's only after I've written them down that I start to see paralells with Harry Potter. It's never exactly the same, but there are a few things here and there that people might say I ripped off. One of the best friends of my caracters got black hair, and allthough I see him completly different in my head and I described him differently, some people might still think I took it from there...
And looney4mooney, I agree about the magical school thing. My stories ALWAYS include magic, which fantasys do, and I always want them to ave training somewhere. I also started wrting this one story and the guy lived in a castle. It was completly different, for one reason he lived there with his parents and the book wouldn't have taken place there anyway, but I did notice some parralells with HP.

Anyway, this book sounds good, I've never heard about it before though. And the caracter has hair like Harry, hmmm. I've steered clear of having caracters who look like Harry :p A lot of the stuff sound WAY to much like HP though! I mean, I havn't read it yet, but from what I've read in this thread...

[pince11]

Well, I'll have to pick up the 3rd book in the series. I've read the first two - - I don't really know why. It's not that I didn't like them - - but I did feel like I was reading "a fanfic and it was so good that they took it legit. " - great line Inkwolf. (I haven't learned how to post with Quotes yet....) I could not get my students interested in them, though. (middle school kids). The Harry Potter fans felt like they were poor imitations and just didn't make the effort after the first couple of chapters. Maybe I should have tried harder. Well, on to book three. The summer's give me plenty of reading time!

[Violet Black]

I think the Stouffer business was little more than a cynical (indeed, criminal) attempt at cashing in on the HP phenomenon, especially when you consider Stouffer's doctoring of the 'evidence.'

It's a big wide world, and there are lots of writers in it. It's not impossible for two writers to have similar (or the same) ideas, with neither being aware of the other. The estate of William S. Burroughs isn't exactly itching to sue JKR for the use of the word 'mugwump' as one of Dumbledore's titles.

There's a massive difference between 'influence' and 'plagiarism.' If JKR was influenced by anything, as most writers are, it would most likely be Diana Wynne Jones' books or Jill Murphy's Worst Witch series.

[FluffyMundungus]

I've read the Charlie Bone series too (more like skim read), mainly because my sister's obsessed with them. Anyways, im sure the author might have been influenced by hp, but some of the similarities could be just coicidences.
Not that have anything against charlie bone or anything, but though their interesting, sometimes the plot gets a little predictable (Im almost sure who Charlie's dad is), and the writing duznt flow as smooth as hp.
But i can see how someone would think these books are just imitations of hp.

[HPR]

I just wondered whether anyone else was reading the Charlie Bone series. I'm listening to it on audio, and enjoying it very much, but certain elements in the books make it feel...like...well, like someone started out to write some sort of James-and-Lily fanfic and it was so good that they took it legit.

Some similarities to Harry Potter: Charlie Bone discovers he has mysterious powers when he's 9 or 10 years old. He has bushy, unmanageable black hair. His father is dead, and he is living at the expense of his hostile relatives. He goes to a special school for kids with unusual gifts. The second book involves a 'time twister' magical device which can send you through time.

Some differences: the tone is far more menacing and less cuddly than the Harry books. (Bloor's Academy...imagine if Hogwarts were much smaller, included Muggle arts students, was run by Lucius Malfoy, and that Draco was several years older than Harry and was Head Boy. :p Though Manfred Bloor is much more threatening than spoiled-brat Draco could ever be.) The father's side of Charlie's family are mainly nasty, tough old women...their family has a tradition of having members who are gifted in one way or another. Charlie's mother and Grandma Maisy live with him, to help offset the menace of the evil Grandma Bone and his terrible aunts. People aren't generically magical in Charlie's world, they each have a specific ability...Charlie's is to hear photographs. He can hear what was going on when the picture was taken.

So, anyone else who's read them--what do you think? Harry clone, or pure coincidence? Any other nominees for Harry Clone books?
Hello,

Yes, I love this series. It was an awsome read. Even though I only read two. . .

Post Spree,
Chase

[herekitty]

I thought that Midnight for Charlie Bone had a lot of the same characteristics as the Harry Potter series, but I also thought it seemed ripped off from several other books as well. (The Dark is Rising Series, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Seeing Stone, etc.) I don't think that the author is attempting to make it exactly like Harry Potter though. Now the new Charmed episodes, I think they are stealing......

Oh and VelvetSkies, my sentiments exactly.

[loopdeedoo123]

I don't think it's really that much the same. I mean, Charlie has the magic thing and all, but its really not that much like HP. I didn't really like it that much though. I started reading thinking it was going to be a lot better than it was. It's more for little kids.

[snuggle the muggle]

I just read Charlie Bone and the Invisible Boy because I had to even though I hadn't read the other two. It was all right. The world did not suck me in and make me love it like Harry's does but the story was moderately interesting and I got through it quickly. I thought things were a bit contrived and silly, but I'll probably go back and read the other two.

As for similarities, I saw some vague similarities, but really, really obscure ones. For one thing, his mother is alive and he thinks his father is and they seem protective of him and loving, so that's one big difference. True, his grandmother lives there, but he also has another grandmother who is kind and protective also living with him, as well as a great-uncle. So, that's four nice adults and one mean one at home, not like HP at all.

Yes, there is the matter of the different houses, (three) but I think that's just a British school thing that is universal.

The magic is really, really different from that in HP. For one thing, it does not seem like very nice magic, ever. I mean there's no good magic and bad magic. It all seems almost torturous in a way that these children have it. They are called "endowed" but to me it seems like the word should be "punished." And of course as has been mentioned, everyone's magic is unique and you seem to only have one gift per person.

The biggest difference that struck me in the books is that although they go to this academy, they just study regular subjects that seem to have no bearing on their magic at all. Charlie takes French and English and history and writing, etc. There was never a mention of him taking any sort of "magic classes" which is of course completely different than the HP world, where they only take classes on magic and never any of the traditional subjects such as writing or PE or maths. So that is a direct opposite.

To conclude then, I would say: I do not think there are any but the most superficial similarities between the two series, and those that do exist are just coincidence because they do discuss children, magic, and fighting evil.

[Taleeya]

Hmmm one of my teachers (an English one, and one of the FEW teachers I have ever respected) once said that all stories have already been written. I believe it to be pretty true..... From what I have heard of the Charlie Bones' stories, they don't sound like a Harry Potter rip-off. I mean, no new books can have the hero with black hair, because that's ripping off Harry Potter? Things can get really RIDIKULOUS with all these copyright accusations.

[star14]

Does or has anyone read the "Children of the Red King" series?
If yes, how did you like them?
Do you think they would make a good movie?


I, personaly loved them! I found them very intersesting.I really wish they would become a movie because they are awsome!

The reason I've started this tread is because I had never heard of them before three months ago and I was wondering if anyone else knew about them.

[Boycrazy25]

I love children of the red king!!!!!! It`s awsom! I hope it becomes a movie someday.
Read The Children of the Red King Everyone plz!

[ValorusARiddle]

What is??

[Kelpie]

I picked up my little sister's copy of Charlie Bone the other day. I noticed the similarities to HP straightaway and I'll admit that they bothered me. However, I would hesitate to assume that Jenny simply copied her ideas from JKR and certainly these stories wouldn't have started out as HP fanfic ;) Jenny Nimmo is a respected author in her own right and was so long before Harry was even a random thought floating around in JKR's imagination.

I've read her earlier books including the Snow Spider trilogy in which - guess it - a young boy with messy black hair discovers on his birthday that he is in fact a powerful magician. He has a very Ronesque friend who comes from a large poor family with mischevious twin brothers and a little sister who seems to have a crush on the hero, Gwyn. Yet this series came out years before Harry Potter.

Even HP itself can be compared to the works of others - Roald Dahl, Diana Wynne Jones, Jill Murphy, Thomas Hughes. Authors can take their inspiration from others, but it doesn't mean that they lack originality. Shakespeare was the biggest plagariser that ever lived! :p

So I don't think that Jenny Nimmo is guilty of plagarism. But, that said, the similarities did knock me a little off kilter and I don't think Charlie Bone holds up to most of her own earlier work. The tone and style were vastly different from the dreamy, sometimes eerie, Celtic atmosphere I remember loving her for as a child and I did find the plot very predictable. I'm still going to have to read the others in the series now though, I'm like that :elaugh:

[Lupin4eva]

Ive read all three of the books, and they are similar, but i reccomend the doomspell trilogy, soz its a bit off topic but it was really really good! The one thing that is different about the charlie bone siries is actually that charlie is in a house where he is loved. his mum loves him, his uncle loves him, and his nan, well one of them, loves him. its a different sort of environment from last time.

[LunaStar_1000]

Well I've never read the Charlie Bones series, (I want to but I havnt) so I wouldnt know. I've heard that its similar to Harry Potter and I want to find out, but for the moment I'll just turst that it is similar because alot of people have told me so.

[SingingBird]

I don't think the Charlie Bone books are a copy (my sister does though) of Harry Potter. Sure, they may have some simularities (eg. names)but for the most part they are different. For example, Harry Potter can be read by people of all ages whereas Charlie Bone is mainly for older kids between ages 10-13. Harry POtter has a lot more things that people can relate to but Charlie Bone is more fictional than that. Not that Charlie Bone is a bad book, it is actually pretty good, nowhere in the HP league, but it's still good.

[star14]

I can't wait for the 4th one to come out!

[Prettee]

I haven't read them.
Just how good are they ?
Oh, and please tell me who the author is so I can buy them.

[Inkwolf]

Umm, I think those are the books more commonly known as the Charlie Bone series, where I live. :) I've never heard them called Children of the Red King, though.

Are they the same, do you think? By Jenny Nimmo? Is the main character Charlie Bone, and he goes to Bloor's Academy? Where are you guys from who read them under that title?

Edit: Oh, Canada, one of you. :p

There's a Charlie Bone thread here:
http://www.cosforums.com/showthread.php?t=21067

[star14]

I've read all three of them, and yes there are similarities but I don't think anoyone copied one another. Lots of people think LOTR is like HP and yes there too theres similarities, so its not just those two stories, there are alot of stories that are alike.

Umm, I think those are the books more commonly known as the Charlie Bone series, where I live. :) I've never heard them called Children of the Red King, though.

Are they the same, do you think? By Jenny Nimmo? Is the main character Charlie Bone, and he goes to Bloor's Academy? Where are you guys from who read them under that title

Yes they are the same.

[HermionePower]

totall copycat!

[sirius_gerl]

I guess you have a point there. I've only read the first one, cause it kinda annoyed me that it said "To be continued" on the last page. But back on topic. Yes, they are similar. Maybe the author of Charlie Bone liked Harry Potter.