Making Lord Of The Rings Accessible To All Literary Palates

I recently stumbled across a wonderful thread on the Straight Dope message board posing the following question: What if Lord of the Rings Had Been Written By Someone Else?
Some quick examples, starting with an adaptation that would make Theodor Geisel proud:

"Gandalf, Gandalf! Take the ring!
I am too small to carry this thing!"
"I can not, will [...]