SQJ Taipei

I love this book. This was actually the first time that I read it. My first contact with The Hobbit was from watching an animated video. I don’t really remember it. My first contact with Tolkien’s writing was from an audio cd that I borrowed from Mike Worstell back in 1999. I had just moved to Taiwan and was living in Mike’s apartment while they were back in the USA for a while. I played the cds while working on the computer. I enjoyed the book, but found that it was hard to really pay attention and get it all. Fortunately… I had this chance to actually crack the book and give it a good read.

I read to the kids almost every night… been doing so for years. We usually read stuff that is historical, like The Little House series or Anne of Green Gables. We’ve read The Chronicles of Narnia a couple times. Most recently we read The Journeyman, Justin Morgan Had a Horse, Swift Rivers, Calico Bush and the like. I thought that it would be fun to take a bit of a break from those types of books and introduce them to Middle Earth.

One thing I noticed right away was how funny Tolkien is. I did read the Lord of the Rings Trilogy but have since seen the movies (like everyone else) and I’m not sure that Tolkien’s humor really came through in the movies, great as they were. Were the books in the trilogy as funny as The Hobbit? I don’t remember and I think that the movies have clouded my memory. The kids and I laughed out lout on numerous occasions during the first few chapters. Even Angie laughed as she sat across the room and heard some of the story.

It is really interesting to read The Hobbit after knowing the rest of the story. It is clear that Tolkien had given a great deal of thought to the land of Middle Earth, but it is also clear that he had no idea that the Trilogy would be so far reaching. Some of the things in The Hobbit are incompatible with the Trilogy… but actually not very much considering. The edition we read had a few re-writes to smooth over some of those inconsistencies. I’m sure some people probably really care a lot about that. I don’t care at all. This is a great book and is a lot of fun.

The kids really liked it. When I asked them to give me a sentence or so about the story, Bethanie said, “I don’t really have sentences but I have words.” Then she gave me “magical” and “exciting”. She also said that other girls might like The Hobbit, too. Zachary said that it was “interesting and neat” and his favorite part was (spoiler alert… highlight the following text to see Z’s favorite part if interested) when Smaug the dragon got killed.

Overall… this is a great book and a great introduction to Tolkien and Middle Earth. We’ll probably try to work the Trilogy into our reading schedule over the next few months.

Riddles in the Dark - Bilbo

from

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