When is Tolkien bad?? When the authorities say so. I remember that in my grade six (I was ten years old, an accelerated little wacko who loved fantasies including Harry Potter and LotR) in a nice little Catholic school, my teacher just lost her nerve and confiscated my FotR that I was reading while lunchbreak, saying how nice little girls don't read this and don't do that instead of yada yada yada... and I called my dad afterwards, not because I loved the books back then, but because I was scared of coming home without my new book. It turned out a very nasty event, with my dad and his mates from the local department of education, arguing with the nuns and the teacher-from-hell. After eons of waiting for a result the book was returned to me, along with an apology to me and my dad, and that was when I thought that it must be good, the book, and that got me hooked to Tolkien.