Re: OT: Gandalph, your sig is missing an article
 

Children? I think LoTR would make a great story read to children but might be abit hard for them to get thru. I read it first in JrHigh and was told then that it was required reading in college english courses.

The Hobbit is a good childrens book but I think LoTR is probably at low high school range for most.

But its DEFINETLY one of those things which should NOT be missed in life. (but hey, Im probably prejudiced) [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon40.gif[/img]

Re: OT: Gandalph, your sig is missing an article
 

I first read the trilogy in fifth grade, when I got it for Christmas, and I've probably read it through ~30 times since then (16 years or so). I've also finished the Silmarillion a few times, and most of the other stories that he wrote at least once. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Of course, I am a very fast reader (now I usually get through the entire trilogy in <2 days), but I continue to find things that I never caught the first 20 times or so through. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: OT: Gandalph, your sig is missing an article
 

I first read the trilogy when I was about 13 or so. Maybe even 12. It does depend on the maturity and reading ability of the kid of course.

Re: OT: Gandalph, your sig is missing an article
 

I read LoTR in second grade. It and Lewis's Narnia were what my parents used to teach me to read since the school system didn't.

Rasorow

Re: OT: Gandalph, your sig is missing an article
 

Parents, if you want your kids to read, read to them, starting as soon as possible. After a while, they will want to take the book away and 'read' it themselves. Probably have at least their favorite memorized, I did. Although all I can remember now is 'One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish. This one has a yellow star, this one has a yellow car. My, what a lot of fish there are.'

Re: OT: Gandalph, your sig is missing an article
 

Tolkien....I have read The Hobbit and LOTR so many times that they are now sort of a Comfort Blanket to me..If I need to go to sleep and cant..I grab any of them and open to a random page...it puts me right to sleep. I first read the Hobbit in 4th grade..then had the entire LOTR read by the end of the summer. At that age the mind is pretty imaginative..I have to relate the following account.

I grew up in the Mts of Western North Carolina..Closest neighbor was well over a mile away. Mts, Woods, Creeks, Wildlife...very much Shireish or just plain old Middle Earthish to a young kid.

Heres the scene..Mid Winter, Cold Overcast Misty day, I in my sweatshirt with a pullover hood(so I could pretend to be a dwarve with the hood) and a wooden mallet from a croqets (Sp?) set (my dwarven warhammer) and a wooden lid off of a tomato basket (my shield).

I'm sneaking my way through the woods kiling imaginary Ors and wargs..I descend a path wich leads to the bottom lands down by the river. Now this particular set of bottomlands is a place of high weeds, stump piles, burnt stump piles and the dumpng ground for many a farm animal that had passed on..so there was an abundanceof bones and skulls laying around. A pretty goodplace to imagine the evils of Sauron.

Now I in all my dwarvish glory passed from one set of bottom lands to another wich contained a Sawmill in the process of being built. There was a huge deisel engine on a stand wich ran the saw covered by a large sheet of black pLastic. As a kid I turned the corner and in the distance through the mist and fog I see a large black shape..my young mind doest see pLastic..it sees within the shadows and textures at least three Nazgul bent over, wind blows and they move a little ..turning and looking at me...

needless to say..my feet did not touch the ground for at least a half a mile!! So much for Dwarvish Glory...and so much for the wonder of the young kids fun and imagination..

Damn those were good days.

Re: OT: Gandalph, your sig is missing an article
 

Sometimes I wish I had grown up in the country, with woods out back that were like Calvins in Calvin and Hobbes - Big enough to have grand adventures in, but close enough to home that you never really got lost.

Re: OT: Gandalph, your sig is missing an article
 

That is the kind of woods I grew up by. My brother and I played out there everyday when we were younger. I just recently went out to those woods again and memories came back to me and so much has changed out there since we played in them. Those were the days...