Author Topic: What age to first read The Hobbit to a kid?  (Read 12730 times)

What age to first read The Hobbit to a kid?
« on: 09 April, 2008, 04:46:38 pm »

This topic came up the other day at home. I can't remember when I first read The Hobbit, but I was probably older than most when I found out about it (11?). Someone once mentioned reading it to his son when the kid was 9.

I'm just wondering at what age they can really begin to "get" the whole story. And even though it didn't seem to mess me up too much, sometimes I could do without swords, battles, etc., in kids books.
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Charlotte

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Re: What age to first read The Hobbit to a kid?
« Reply #1 on: 09 April, 2008, 04:56:46 pm »
I don't remember when I first read it.  I was very young, though.

But don't worry - it's a children's book.  Eight or nine?

Kids think swords, battles, etc. are cool  :)
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border-rider

Re: What age to first read The Hobbit to a kid?
« Reply #2 on: 09 April, 2008, 05:00:59 pm »
I dunno - I'd have found it pretty tedious going at 8, 9, 10

Wascally Weasel

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Re: What age to first read The Hobbit to a kid?
« Reply #3 on: 09 April, 2008, 05:05:42 pm »
Kids think swords, battles, etc. are cool  :)

Then I am a child.  ;D

Julian

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Re: What age to first read The Hobbit to a kid?
« Reply #4 on: 09 April, 2008, 05:13:48 pm »
My dad read it to me aloud when I was about seven.  I may have missed some of the allusions, but you could say the same about the Narnia series, or Chesterton. 

And my dad does brilliant elf voices.  :D

Re: What age to first read The Hobbit to a kid?
« Reply #5 on: 09 April, 2008, 05:23:56 pm »
I dunno - I'd have found it pretty tedious going at 8, 9, 10

Heavy going or too childish?
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border-rider

Re: What age to first read The Hobbit to a kid?
« Reply #6 on: 09 April, 2008, 05:30:08 pm »
Boring and difficult.

I was a very precocious reader, but at that age I wouldn't have had the interest or patience - or the vocabulary -  for the Hobbit.

;)

Seriously, I waded through War & Peace at 12, and that's not natural, is it ?

Re: What age to first read The Hobbit to a kid?
« Reply #7 on: 09 April, 2008, 05:44:10 pm »
You must have had a sudden developmental leap at 11. Or a kindly passing surgeon slapped a new brain in.  ;)
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clarion

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Re: What age to first read The Hobbit to a kid?
« Reply #8 on: 09 April, 2008, 07:22:29 pm »
I found t'Hobbit verrry boring, but ploughed through it, cause my dad liked it.  :(
Getting there...

Re: What age to first read The Hobbit to a kid?
« Reply #9 on: 09 April, 2008, 07:32:31 pm »
How old were you then?

Hmmm...going by what Charlotte and Liz have said, it looks like females lean to earlier ages. Maybe because girls are smarter....
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Basil

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Re: What age to first read The Hobbit to a kid?
« Reply #10 on: 09 April, 2008, 07:37:03 pm »
My kids would have been 7 and 10 (I think) when I read the Hobbit to them.
I then read them Watership Down.  
I really enjoyed it.  Choosing "voices" for each of the main characters makes it so much more interesting.  Although remembering which "voice" goes with which character can sometimes be a strain.  (7 year old, "Why is the Sea Gull (I forget his name) talking like Bigwig?")
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clarion

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Re: What age to first read The Hobbit to a kid?
« Reply #11 on: 09 April, 2008, 08:47:05 pm »
How old were you then?

Hmmm...going by what Charlotte and Liz have said, it looks like females lean to earlier ages. Maybe because girls are smarter....

I was about 10.  I'd already read Crime & Punishment, and The Gambler, as well as sundry other 'advanced' books*





* I was a precocious, not to say pretentious, reader...  :P
Getting there...

Re: What age to first read The Hobbit to a kid?
« Reply #12 on: 09 April, 2008, 09:06:22 pm »
That's nothing. My dad gave me my first Sven Hassel when I was about 11  ::-) ;D :o.
Stropping rocks

Re: What age to first read The Hobbit to a kid?
« Reply #13 on: 10 April, 2008, 12:36:46 am »
I dunno - I'd have found it pretty tedious going at 8, 9, 10

I did find it very tedious at that age.  I think about 10.


I read in order, including "The Hobbit" (or whatever the preview book is) right through to about halfway through the last book (Twin towers?)


I tried again later in life.



I still find them tedious, including the films :(     I wonder if this is due to my first experience?

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Re: What age to first read The Hobbit to a kid?
« Reply #14 on: 10 April, 2008, 08:27:32 am »
I think I was 12 when I read The Hobbit.
I then went on to have 2 or 3 unsuccessful attempts at LotR which I think I eventually finished in my late teens.
I've now read it at least 4 times!  ;)
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Re: What age to first read The Hobbit to a kid?
« Reply #15 on: 10 April, 2008, 08:38:35 am »
A teacher read it to us in junior school.  I think that we were about 9 or 10.

Re: What age to first read The Hobbit to a kid?
« Reply #16 on: 10 April, 2008, 12:06:06 pm »
I never read it until I was 30.

Judging on my kids, I'd say 11ish but even though my two love the films and read lots of kids books, I'm not sure the Hobbit does it for them. You can get it in Audio book form but again my two like the Roald Dahl stuff better.

Save it for later in life if they won't read it themselves now.

hellymedic

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Re: What age to first read The Hobbit to a kid?
« Reply #17 on: 10 April, 2008, 01:21:53 pm »
We did it at school when I was 11. Seemed OK at the time.

Re: What age to first read The Hobbit to a kid?
« Reply #18 on: 10 April, 2008, 02:55:34 pm »
Liz and Charlotte (for example) said 7 or 8; others are saying 11 or later. Is that the difference between reading it aloud and kids reading it on their own?
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outwith

Re: What age to first read The Hobbit to a kid?
« Reply #19 on: 10 April, 2008, 03:23:55 pm »
Could be.  I've taught it to/read it with a class of 11-year-olds and I think they were a bit old for it as a collective experience.  But lots of them would have read it happily on their own. 

Re: What age to first read The Hobbit to a kid?
« Reply #20 on: 12 April, 2008, 12:21:02 am »
I read it at about 10.
I got about half way through the Fellowship of the Ring before giving up. On the other hand, I quite liked the Illiad (in English, not that prcocious)

Re: What age to first read The Hobbit to a kid?
« Reply #21 on: 12 April, 2008, 02:41:18 am »
OK; so maybe I read it closer to the normal age than I thought (rather than later), but a few years earlier would be OK for reading aloud.
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simongjones

Re: What age to first read The Hobbit to a kid?
« Reply #22 on: 12 April, 2008, 04:22:18 am »
I read it to my kids at ages 6 and 8.  But tbh I think they just enjoyed me reading to them at such length! (He said, in a smug and delighted way revelling in the affection of and for his children.) ;D

Hmmm, on reflection that smilie really is MUCH more eloquent than I am!

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Re: What age to first read The Hobbit to a kid?
« Reply #23 on: 14 April, 2008, 01:56:33 pm »
That's nothing. My dad gave me my first Sven Hassel when I was about 11  ::-) ;D :o.

Pah! I  nicked my Dad's when I was 9. Read the hobbit at around 9, LoTR in bits when 10 (elder brother had got it from the library in teh three volumes), then the whole book over 4 days in the summer before going to secondary school (I had bought it with my own money too!)

Didn't read war and peace till I got married. I read it whilst commuting from Didcot to Paddington over a period of three months.

..d
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Re: What age to first read The Hobbit to a kid?
« Reply #24 on: 14 April, 2008, 09:35:23 pm »
I read the Lord of the Rings (to myself) when I was about 8, so I guess the Hobbit a year or so before that? 

I'd stopped having things read to me quite early, though - I got frustrated because I could read to myself faster, IIRC :)  When I was 7 or 8 I sometimes read to my sister, though.

I read War & Peace on a family holiday aged 16, as a form of Pointed Sulk (I hadn't wanted to go along).  Did not enjoy it.