I recently finished reading The Hobbit to my five year old. It was easily the longest, most complex book we've read to him in totality (I did some individual chapters of Tom Sawyer last year but not the whole thing) and, while I don't quite know exactly how much he understood, he absolutely loved it. You could best tell by the questions not seeking explanation of what we just read but instead trying to figure out what'll happen next. There were times he was scared, like meeting the trolls on the road and the first encounter with the orcs under the Misty Mountains, but he never wanted to stop reading. He didn't want the book in his room afterward overnight, however. We have a cool illustrated version, you can find it here, with at least one full-page, color picture in each chapter and sometimes more. This, obviously, helps with visualization and comprehension for someone our son's age but I have to say I like looking at them myself. The concept of fantasy, where places and creatures are made up, is I think making sense to him too, though he does clarify what's real and what's not from time to time.
The biggest problem we had was greatly spreading it out. We read over several months, maybe a chapter a week. Some of the chapters take 30 minutes or more to get through and that's a lot of time, especially with two younger kids around that don't sit still. As we progressed, references to characters or happenings earlier in the book were often forgotten, though I was (usually) happy to go through them again. Nearing the end, with the encounters with Smaug and the build-up to the big battle, we read in much quicker succession, knocking out probably the last five chapters in a week. That was much better. He really liked the ending and got the chance to excitedly tell my wife about it the next day. She responded by saying something like, 'Now two of you know Lord of the Rings better than I do.'
A few thoughts on this read-through, as it must've been more than 10 years.
Tolkien's flowery language, ever-present in this story, stood out, and this part of his writing is more enjoyable to me as I get older. The narrative was always the driving force for me in my youth and I tended to blow past the descriptions of the landscape, for example, and the many songs. Not so much anymore. They're growing on me and I wish I knew the tunes.
I'd remembered that this was a simpler tale, more accessible to children than The Lord of the Rings. What I noticed this time was how it's broken up into manageable pieces, with most chapters like mini stories, or adventures, of their own. Many are wildly memorable of course, Bilbo's unexpected party, riddles in the dark, the spiders of Mirkwood, the conversations with Smaug, the battle over Lake-town. Its overall tone is lighter too, the stakes involve a hobbit and a party of dwarves seeking great treasure (plus some men and elves and a wizard), but we're not talking the fate of the entire world. When we meet the elves at Rivendell they sing silly songs and are playful, very different from the dour group we meet during Frodo's journey. Bilbo even wears the ring often and it saves his life several times. We have no idea at this point exactly the importance or power of it, and it's basically just a novelty to him, if a useful one.
A fun aspect is that the big difference in how these stories read, the tone and the like, is easier to explain than you might think. Written into The Hobbit is how the story is Bilbo's own telling following his return (just like The Lord of the Rings is written by Frodo and Sam). He's the narrator. We even get his title, 'There and Back Again, a Hobbit's Holiday.' Maybe his recall isn't wholly reliable. His adventure involved a good deal of fun, even considering the loss of some of his companions, and in the end left him changed for the better. He was not broken forever like his nephew and this reflects in how he tells his story.
Reading this now did frustrate me again with how the movies turned out. They're too dark, too long, and bafflingly added some stuff that adds nothing to the story at all. Much of it (like Martin Freeman throughout) is great, but overall they aren't something I want to revisit with regularity.
In reflection, I loved this experience with my son. It was probably, no, undoubtedly, overly ambitious but it worked out. I've now been thinking about what other bigger books I can read with him. We already started The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and he's all in. I'm also trying to read with higher frequency, if not every night than close to it. I'm sure it won't last forever but we're off to a good start. Maybe Robinson Crusoe will be next. I'm excited to be embarking on a season of life where we can read these type of books together.
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