Child writers break into print

MSN Slate’s most recent article talks about youth writers and their books’ success. In this article, Eragon and Chris Paolini is mentioned a few times and is even compared to Harry Potter:

This year a teenage word-wizard has overtaken Harry Potter on the New York Times children’s books best-seller list: Christopher Paolini’s epic-fantasy Eragon, written when he was 15, is now in the top spot.

Chris and Eragon are also mentioned later on in the article:

Christopher Paolini’s Eragon, which is riveting, gets it right. The deeply rewarding bond between his hero Eragon and the aging wise man Brom (who believes in practice, practice, practice) is fraught with frustration—for both of them. It’s tempting to suspect that the Montana homeschooler whose epic became a family project (Paolini’s parents first published and helped market it) is writing from experience. That’s not to imply some dark story behind the media portrait of bucolic solidarity on the Paolini home front; it’s only to inject a note of reality and to suggest a good augury for Part 2 of now 19-year-old Paolini’s trilogy. Prodigies thrive on studiously tailored solicitude, but the record suggests that perfect family harmony isn’t generally the secret to mature creativity.

Big thanks to DuShurtugals.com for a heads up on the article.