How young?

[Alatar]

My daughter started reading The Hobbit last night. Now, granted, she's hardly been oblivious to it, having grown up surrounded by Tolkien references, but I'm faced with a sort of queasy feeling. What if she doesn't like it? She's seen the Rankin Bass Movies, and bits of Fellowship, and of course the recent trip to the Musical in London.

Still, I wonder is she ready? Her reading age varies dramatically. She's 9 years old, but sometimes reads a bit older, sometimes younger, depending on the material. She read the first 4 Harry Potter books, and I was quite impressed, but then balked on the 5th, which was of course the one she had not yet seen on film. Since then she has read the first 6 Lemony Snickets, which would be more age appropriate and she read those without effort.

So where would you put The Hobbit? I know there's people here who read LotR at 9 or 10, but thats hardly typical. I would consider myself to have been reading well ahead of my age and LotR was probably just right for me at age 12. Even then I read it at a very simple level, as pure adventure story.

I'm thinking 9 or 10 is probably a good age to read The Hobbit, but I don't want her to be put off by reading something too difficult before she's ready.

Thoughts?

[Rowanberry]

I think my daughter was 11 when she first read The Hobbit. I tried to offer it to her a couple of years earlier, but she was scared off by the runes on the title page. I believe she would have liked it already then, though. (And, that was before the LOTR movies were released, and she's never seen the animated Hobbit.)

[ToshoftheWuffingas]

9 sounds OK to me Alatar but she is the best judge.

[Alatar]

Actually, that raises a good point Tosh! As a librarian, what were the average ages you saw borrowing it?

[ToshoftheWuffingas]

At a guess, 8 to 80.

[WampusCat]

I read it at 9, so of course it's a good age! It has the WampusCat Seal of Approval (TM).

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Al, the fact that she took the initiative is the important fact that I see here. It is clear that she has the desire to read it. And she already has a good amount of familiarity with the story, so it won't be confusing to her. I would say nine might be too young to push a child towards reading The Hobbit (although that might not prove to the be the case), but if she wants to do so, I certainly don't think you should discourage it.

[Primula Baggins]

I agree with Voronwë. If she's got the impulse to read it, then even if she doesn't get through it the first time, she'll be back.

[Mrs.Underhill]

My son is 9, and he started reading it on his own accord, after our recent rewatch of LotR movies. He enjoyed the earlier chapters but sadly lost interest in the middle, somewhere in Mirkwood forest. The book still lies there untouched on his table while he's reading other stuff he gets from school library... So it's individual. But I know I would devour it at 7-8 if I had access to it in my childhood.

[Lalaith]

The only thing I'd worry about, Alatar, is if she gets into it and finds it confusing or boring. Then the worry is, "Will she pick it up again later and enjoy it?" I know I tried to read the Hobbit when I was about her age, maybe even 8, and it did not capture my imagination then. So I avoided Tolkien from then on out, until I was an adult and saw FotR.

Hopefully, she'll love it, though, already being familiar with it.

I am trying to figure out our summer reading, and I'm debating whether to try the Hobbit again with the girls. (We like to read aloud.) They have requested the Narnia books, though. And we never did finish Roverandom, though we were enjoying it.


Lali

[Maria]

My son was reading Tarzan novels at 7, so my judgement in such things is skewed... but why discourage her if it's her idea? Let her read them before she gets infected with preadolescent peer pressure ideas of right and wrong things to like.

[Lurker]

IMHO, I think you should encourage it. Like the other posters have said, she might discontinue reading it but might pick it up later on. As a parent, I will never discourage my kids from reading books but that's just me.

I started reading LOTR at 10, but I must confess, I started reading the Hobbit afterwards but never finished it. I can relate with what Mrs. Underhill had said that I lost interest when I got to the middle of the book. Sadly, I haven't picked it up since. Unfortunately, I was more interested in the Rankin Bass The Hobbit than the actual book until now.

[Crucifer]

I read it at 7, and while I certainly didn't appreciate it at the level I do now, I definitely loved it.

My little sis (11) and I have been reading it together on and off since last Summer. It's hard to find a time when we can get together to read it because we're both involved in so much, but we started when she was just ten and seems to have loved it so far.

I suppose it really does depend on the person. As has been said, the fact that it's a choice on your daughter's part to read it is big.

[MithLuin]

I also read LotR for the first time at age 12. I was a voracious reader since the age of about 8, so I found all my own books at that age, usually in the library (both school and public). But LotR was on my parents' bookshelf, above their old college textbooks, so I had to climb on a chair to get to it. I was also thrilled to discover Journey to the Center of the Earth, which I'd spent nearly four months looking for, right next to it. (I'll be honest; I was more excited about Verne than Tolkien at that point in my life.)

I do not remember when I first read The Hobbit, but I know it was at least a few years before that, probably in 5th grade (which makes me....10). Like your daughter, I was very familiar with the Rankin Bass movies before all of this, but that never hooked me on the stories. I considered it a children's book, so too young for me by the time I was 12. I could not understand why it took a boy in my class nearly all year to read the book when we were in 7th or 8th grade.

Basically, try not to worry, and see what her reaction is. Even if she is at a good age, she might not like it. There's no guarantee on these things. But she's not 'too young' overall, I don't think.


But then, I say this because when my brother was 5 years old, I read him "The Hobbit." He liked to have stories read to him at bedtime, and I enjoyed reading chapter books to him, such as the Redwall stories, The Adventures of Nils and Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. So, it was not that surprising that I would have suggested the Hobbit (I am 10 years his senior, so I was 15 at the time). He enjoyed it, and kept demanding more, but he did fall asleep at parts and had to be encouraged by the promise of Gollum. As soon as we finished, he wanted more, so I tried to read LotR to him. It didn't work. He was too young, and even though I skipped the Prologue, I never got past, "Light, light of sun and moon, he will always fear, I think" in 'Shadows of the Past.' So, I put it aside until he was older.

And he grew up quickly, so I took a summer off of TORc to read him LotR in the evenings after work. He was 9 at the time, and his 11-yr-old brother joined us sometime after Bree. The advantage of having me read aloud was that my brothers could ask me questions as we went. I didn't want to spoil things, so often enough I said things like, "you'll find out later," but I think it made it easier for them to follow. I had a nice big John Howe map and I drew them a diagram of Helm's Deep so they could keep track of what the Deeping Wall was and all of that. This was before PJ's films.

When my youngest brother was 10 years old, he requested that I read him Hamlet, and I did, in one weekend. My father scoffed at me, saying there was *no* way he could understand what I was saying. My brother promptly summarized the most recent plot point (Hamlet wouldn't kill his uncle cause he was praying, and he wanted to punish the man, not send him to heaven), and my Dad left us alone. But to be fair, he was only in it for the final fight scene. Our sister had told him about it, and he was excited for the carnage . He had an auditory processing problem, so it was probably more difficult for him to understand by listening to me read than by reading it himself, to be honest.

Also at the age of 10, he read The Silmarillion on his own, and understood it enough to discuss it with me afterwards. So, perhaps he is a precocious reader . My other brother does not usually enjoy reading, and limits himself to non-fiction military works and Harry Potter books. He's never read any Tolkien, as far as I know.


And I'll have you know I typed this response even though my brother (the older of the two) has just put in the EE of FotR on his laptop. I feel I should get bonus points for that

[Frelga]

Alatar, I see no reason to discourage a nine-year old from reading the Hobbit, unless you see something in the book that is likely to disturb her in particular.

The only thing I'd worry about, Alatar, is if she gets into it and finds it confusing or boring. Then the worry is, "Will she pick it up again later and enjoy it?" I know I tried to read the Hobbit when I was about her age, maybe even 8, and it did not capture my imagination then. So I avoided Tolkien from then on out, until I was an adult and saw FotR.

Well, worst case, the Hobbit movie comes out in a few years. She might go back to the book then.

I am trying to figure out our summer reading, and I'm debating whether to try the Hobbit again with the girls. (We like to read aloud.) They have requested the Narnia books, though. And we never did finish Roverandom, though we were enjoying it.

Pratchett's Tiffany Aching books went very well with my son this year. The Wee Free Men is the first one, and IMO, the best.

[Impenitent]

[osgiliation]
Frelga, what about the kids books by Pratchett? My son loved Johnny and the Bomb, Johnny and the Dead and Only you can save Mankind...and Maurice, of course.
[/end osgiliation]

Al, I had to contradictory experiences: my daughter, who is an avid reader, tried The Hobbit once at age 9 and rejected it. I tried reading it to her, too, and she was simply not interested. I think the fantasy gene bypassed her.

My son, on the other had, has read it several times already (he's 10 now). He also really loves the graphic book (kind of an abridged version) which he's read so often that the binding is falling apart. I've also read it to him (we enjoy the shared experience, and we are two thirds through LoTR together now - will take us ages to get through though, because I don't read to him regularly).

So, it all depends on whether your little one has the fantasy gene.

[samaranth]

Whereas, the Hobbit was the first book I read to my son, almost from the minute he was born.

Literally - the baby health people suggested reading aloud might help sooth him to sleep. So we read, and read, and he did stop crying...while we read. If we stopped he'd start crying again. So while it didn't work for the stated purpose at least it meant he had an early start to Tolkien.

He also started to read it independently at about 10. We have an Alan Lee illustrated version, very glossy, and it managed to hold his attention all the way through. He did say he didn't enjoy it as much as the read aloud of LoTR which we'd started just after FoTR was released (and which lasted for a very long time).

I really think it might be true about the fantasy gene, Imp - it can't all be parental modelling that causes a child to like one genre of story-telling over another.

[Scarlet]

First, congratulations on having a child who is willing to read at all, let alone read Tolkien.

I read The Hobbit for the first time aged 8; it was winter, and I have a clear memory of sitting by the fire, accompanying Bilbo & co. through Mirkwood. It has to be said, I didn't think all that much of the book; however, I gave LotR a go when my aunt lent me a one-volume copy at age 9. I stopped midway through Fellowship, I think, and it was only because I ran out of library books (I lived on an island, and books arrived by mail) that I dubiously picked up "that big book" again. There were no further hitches, my nose was stuck in Middle-earth until the end. Another clear memory is of bawling my eyes out over the fall of Gandalf!

LotR immediately became my favourite book, and has remained so. I begged for my own copy, and read it to shreds over the next ten years, understanding a little more, going a little deeper, with every reading.

My advice: if your daughter begins LotR, ensure there are no other books around to distract her.

[ArathornJax]

As I was looking through Dr. Michael Drout's Blog for some things, I came across this blog entry:

http://wormtalk.blogspot.com/2005/03/so ... rings.html

His daughter was four when he read it aloud to her, and in another blog he mentions he was 5 when it was read to him aloud. He gives some interesting insight on his reading I think

By the way, how is your daughter progressing Alatar?

[Alatar]

She's a little nervous. The next chapter is "Flies and Spiders" and she wants to know if it'll scare her. I told her they're not very scary.