Austen vs. French's chooks

The original:
If you have bought day-old chicks, or hatched them in an incubator, you can provide a hot-water bottle (if you can bear to get up in the night and replenish it) or place a light bulb in thr box. If the chicks are too cold, they will huddle round the light; if they are too hot, they will go to the edge of the box. Make sure you put a blanket arund the boxand over it to insulate it and keep the heat in. If they are too confined, chicks can become aggressive and peck each other badly. They grow quickly, so gie them plenty of room. Put a little sand on the bottom of the box.

Jackie French, The Chook Book, Manna Press, Melbourne, 2010, p. 39.

After a few minutes in the Austen Oven:
Chicks that are but just a day in age require warmth; this may be from a hot water bottle, which necessiates getting up through the night to replenish it, or light from a bulb within the box, around which the chicks will huddle. You must also place a coverlet atop the box, as this keeps the heat inside; and do ensure the box has room enough as they grow, to stop them quarrelling, and has sand on its floor, for cleanliness.

A chook is so restful; I adore to watch it caper and scratch, roll cheerfully in the dust, and gather what it can from its meagre existence.

Austen vs. Rowling

I'm first going to take on a literary giant amongst children and adults: J.K.Rowling.  Rowling is heavy on description but less so on thoughts and feelings, so this will be interesting at least.

The Rowling Original 

Harry had never even imagined such a strange and splendid place.  It was lit by thousands and thousands of candles which were floating in mid-air over four long tables, where the rest of the students were sitting.  These tables were laid with glittering golden plates and goblets.  At the top of the hall was another long table where the teachers were sitting.  Professor McGonagall led the first years up here, so that they came to a halt in a line facing the other students, with the teachers behind them.  The hundreds of faces staring at them looked like pale lanterns in the flickering candlelight.  Dotted here and there among the students, the ghosts shone misty silver.  Mainly to avoid all the staring eyes, Harry looked upwards and saw a velvety black ceiling dotted with stars.  He heard Hermione whisper, 'It's bewitched to look like the sky outside, I read about it in Hogwarts, a History.'

 J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Bloomsbury Publishing, 1997, p.87

After Roasting in the Austen Oven

Harold had never even imagined such a strange, splendid place.  It was lit by thousands upon thousands of candles, which were floating over four long tables, which were laid with glittering goblets, and golden plates that caught the light.  The students were seated at these tables; at the top of the hall was yet another long table facing the students at which the teachers presided.  Professor McGonagall led the new students up to the teachers' table, and turned them so they could see the faces of hundreds of the other students, and even those of the ghosts, which drifted around as their mood took them.  Harold looked up to avoid all those eyes, and saw a velvety black ceiling, dotted with shiny stars; Miss Granger whispered beside him, 'It is bewitched to seem like the sky outside; I read so in the book 'Hogwarts: a History.'

Ophelia, 2012

Which is the preferred version?