suppleasthewind Posted November 8, 2012 Share Posted November 8, 2012 I bought the Narnia series on audiobook for my nine year olds. They loved all seven books. I think they listened to the series twice. I then bought Lord of the Rings Trilogy on audiobook, because I thought it would be similar and they would enjoy it. They gave it a try and said they were confused about what was going on. Are there any study guides or resources that would make explain things? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mergath Posted November 8, 2012 Share Posted November 8, 2012 One thing that's always confused me about the trilogy, even now, is trying to keep up with who is going where. Would it help to invest in a good map of Middle Earth (I'm sure you can buy them somewhere) and keep track of the different journeys as you read? You might just end up having to wait a couple years, though. LotR is a good deal more difficult than the Narnia books. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monica_in_Switzerland Posted November 8, 2012 Share Posted November 8, 2012 I tried to read LOTR when I was 12 or so and felt a bit intimidated. I read the Hobbit instead, and that was just enough of a boost to then be able to read LOTR. See if you can find the Hobbit- you get to know the setting, a couple of the characters, and the history of the ring and how it came to Bilbo. It also is a bit faster paced, so when you come to the slower LOTR, you are willing to plug along, because you know it'll be great! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Punks in Ontario Posted November 8, 2012 Share Posted November 8, 2012 You might just end up having to wait a couple years, though. LotR is a good deal more difficult than the Narnia books. :iagree: The map idea is good as well. LotR is so much longer and more complicated that I'd just give it some time. Have you read "The Hobbit"? It's a good read all by itself while introducing LotR characters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chelli Posted November 8, 2012 Share Posted November 8, 2012 I tried a couple of times to read LOTR, even into adult hood but I kept getting lost and confused. I was finally able to read through the entire trilogy after the first movie came out. Once I watched it I had faces to put to the names. I knew how the names were pronounced and I had the general flow of the first book down. After that movie I read through the trilogy in a week!!! There has never been another book to movie situation where seeing the movie first was crucial to me being able to read the book. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boscopup Posted November 8, 2012 Share Posted November 8, 2012 I agree with reading the Hobbit first. My son and I read the books this year, and we started with the Hobbit. Then we read LOTR 1, watched that movie, then 2, watched that movie, etc. I had never read the books before, but I had seen the movies. My son hadn't done either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie Posted November 8, 2012 Share Posted November 8, 2012 (edited) Well, they need to read (or listen to) the Hobbit before LOTR. The Hobbit sets the stage for what happens in the LOTR. And rather than using a study guide, I'd just wait. I know that some younger children seem to enjoy them, but honestly, they are LONG books, with lots of words they will not understand, and all the songs, and all of the story lines once the Fellowship is broken up. I'd just wait. FTR, I read the Hobbit and LOTR back in 1970 for the first time. I read the covers off two sets of paperbacks. I have them in hardcover now, and have read them probably 20 times (at least). The last time I noticed something I hadn't noticed before. They are *deep* books! Edited November 8, 2012 by Ellie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amy M Posted November 8, 2012 Share Posted November 8, 2012 I tried a couple of times to read LOTR, even into adult hood but I kept getting lost and confused. I was finally able to read through the entire trilogy after the first movie came out. Once I watched it I had faces to put to the names. I knew how the names were pronounced and I had the general flow of the first book down. After that movie I read through the trilogy in a week!!! There has never been another book to movie situation where seeing the movie first was crucial to me being able to read the book. I didn't understand the movie without my dad sitting there explaining it all to me (he read the series faithfully every year since I was a child). Then my husband and I read the trilogy, and now we've read it 5 times in 7 1/2 years of marriage. We love it! Agree w/ Ellie--always something new to learn or take away from it. I think it would be advanced for junior high. It is also hard to go from Sam and Frodo's journey back to wars in middle earth and back and forth. You want to stay with whoever you're reading about. Also, we skip the elvish poetry or the Tom Bombadil chapters in Fellowship on some of our run-throughs. (What's with Bombadil? He doesn't seem to fit with the rest of it. And Fellowship is So exciting once you get past Bombadil.) Our version (a 3-in-1 from Barnes and Noble) has appendices, and one of them lines up the split journeys of Sam and Frodo and what's happening in Rohan and Gondor, so you can get a timeline of everything happening at once. That's about all the movies are good for in my opinion. I appreciated the movie of Fellowship, but Peter Jackson slaughtered Two Towers, and having Frodo push Gollum into Mount Doom in the end really messes up some symbolism. Anyway, don't hate me if you love the movies. :auto: I do think the only way to understand what's happening all at once is to be familiar with the stories, which is to read them, probably more than once. (or maybe watch the movies, blech.) :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walking-Iris Posted November 8, 2012 Share Posted November 8, 2012 They're great books! My favorite. But your children are 9 and 4. I wouldn't expect them to like or read LOTR at that age, honestly. My kids have seen the movies and my oldest ds has read a bit in some movie companion books. But LOTR is nothing that I would make a point in trying to read with the kids. There are study guides, but for older children. I've attempted to read aloud The Hobbit. That didn't go over very well. Although my boys want to go see the movie. I think they just pick up my enthusiasm for them since I read them again every year. And they're beautiful movies. I really don't believe that LOTR is meant to be children's literature. Not in the same way Narnia is children's literature. The Hobbit---yes. But the style of language in The Hobbit and the LOTR trilogy are vastly different. Tolkien wrote LOTR to a much older audience. I really wouldn't tackle these books in a school study type fashion until late middle school to high school. If my ds picked them up on his own to read, that would be fine. But I wouldn't really dream of expecting it. There's so much going on in those books. Especially if a child is confused, there's no point in pushing it. Wait some years. I read The Hobbit and Fellowship in middle school. I loved The Hobbit but couldn't make any sense of Fellowship. It wasn't until high school that I read them and really enjoyed them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dory Posted November 8, 2012 Share Posted November 8, 2012 I think the Hobbit should be read first. If you really want to get background info with the story then The Silmarillion is good too. I enjoyed them when I was younger and my older two were just introduced to them and enjoy them. They are a much harder to follow series than the Narnia books though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carol in Cal. Posted November 8, 2012 Share Posted November 8, 2012 I was an avid reader, and read LOTR for the first time in 7th grade (I was 6th grade age though). And it was really, really hard. If I couldn't have gone back and forth in the books and looked things up, I never could have gotten them straight. There are times when you're following one story for over 50 pages only to leave it, not to return, for longer than that. It's far easier the second time through, but impossible for me to imagine enjoying it as an audio book the first time unless you have someone explaining it or reminding you what happened before. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suppleasthewind Posted November 8, 2012 Author Share Posted November 8, 2012 Thanks everyone! I am such a nerd. I thought the Hobbit was part of the trilogy, so we don't even have it. duh. I will put LOTR aside for now and find a copy of the Hobbit. I wonder if the map of Middle Earth applies to the Hobbit too? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OrdinaryTime Posted November 8, 2012 Share Posted November 8, 2012 My son used a map of Middle Earth quite a bit when reading The Hobbit to plot out their journey. If you listen to an audiobook, maybe just pick up a hard copy at the library. Every copy of The Hobbit I have ever encountered has had a map in it. I agree with the others who say to wait on LOTR. It is my very favorite book, but it is much better for older kids and adults. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harriet Vane Posted November 8, 2012 Share Posted November 8, 2012 The Hobbit should be read first. It's simpler than LOTR and accessible to 10yos or so. I think your kids are a bit young to really enjoy LOTR. Try again when they are 12. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedgehogs4 Posted November 9, 2012 Share Posted November 9, 2012 I bought the Narnia series on audiobook for my nine year olds. They loved all seven books. I think they listened to the series twice. I then bought Lord of the Rings Trilogy on audiobook, because I thought it would be similar and they would enjoy it. They gave it a try and said they were confused about what was going on. Are there any study guides or resources that would make explain things? My ds listened did the same thing. At 9 Listened to all of Narnia, so I let him READ the first LOTR book. He did, but it took him a while. After he proved to me that his interest really was that high, I let him listen to The Two Towers. Somewhere near the end of it he wearied, and his interest waned. Now he is 11 and we re-read the Hobbit (which he had read on his own originally) and now he is devouring all of the the LOTR unabridged audio and is nearly finished with the third book. It is not the same level as Narnia. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boscopup Posted November 9, 2012 Share Posted November 9, 2012 It's far easier the second time through, but impossible for me to imagine enjoying it as an audio book the first time unless you have someone explaining it or reminding you what happened before. I think it would be difficult as an audio book also. My son and I just read it ourselves (separately... kind of racing, and he beat me twice :tongue_smilie:). He understood the basic plot. I don't expect him to get any symbolism or other literary elements yet (frankly, I usually don't notice that stuff myself), but he enjoyed the story, even at age 8. I don't think that would have been the case with an audio version though. LOTR books are LOOOOOOOONG. :D If they're not ready to read the books themselves, I'd probably wait until they are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dhudson Posted November 9, 2012 Share Posted November 9, 2012 The Hobbit should be read first. It's simpler than LOTR and accessible to 10yos or so. I think your kids are a bit young to really enjoy LOTR. Try again when they are 12. I agree! We just finished reading The Hobbit and Fellowship. I am glad we waited until the twins were 11. They love it and beg for the next chapter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScoutTN Posted November 9, 2012 Share Posted November 9, 2012 RedeemedReader.com is having a Hobbit Read-Along between now and mid-Dec when the movie comes out. Study guide posted weekly, I think. The first installment was Monday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terabith Posted November 9, 2012 Share Posted November 9, 2012 The Hobbit is a children's book. It should definitely be read first. Tolkien wrote it when his kids were young. Actually, he wanted the Silmarillion to be the sequel, since it was the background mythology for the Hobbit. However, the publishers were like....yeah, right. (Have you read the Silmarillion? It's crazy wordy. No dragons or adventures in sight.) So he wrote The Lord of the Rings. Took him 17 years. His kids were no longer kids, and it is NOT a children's book. Was not intended to be. It's a great book, but not for children, not because of inappropriate content but because it is more complicated, wordy, and designed for adults. It's darker. Narnia is for kids; LOTR really isn't. (Interesting factoid: LOTR was written as one book. The publishers in post-WW2 England said it was too long and would be too expensive to print, so he was forced to divide it into the three volumes.) I would wait on it for your kids. You only get one chance to read LOTR for the first time, and I hate to see books almost spoiled by being read too early. It's not that they couldn't listen to it now and enjoy it, but they'll get so much more out of it later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elegantlion Posted November 9, 2012 Share Posted November 9, 2012 I bought a poster of Middle Earth for our study last year. The one I linked is about 5.00. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie Posted November 9, 2012 Share Posted November 9, 2012 However, the publishers were like....yeah, right. (Have you read the Silmarillion? It's crazy wordy. No dragons or adventures in sight.) Oh, yeah. I own it. Could never get through it. :001_huh: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walking-Iris Posted November 9, 2012 Share Posted November 9, 2012 (edited) The Silmarillion wasn't ever finished. I've read it a few times and I think the first part (the quasi-creation myth part) is beyond beautiful. In fact I find all the stories beautiful. But they're not fleshed out with Tolkien-esque natural detail and dialogue. They were more like notes. His son compiled them and arranged them after his father's death so that LOTR lovers could get a complete picture of the scope of his father's work. The man was amazing. Just the completeness of Middle Earth's geography, languages, history is what keeps these books timeless. There are strands in The Sil that really help one analyze certain actions in LOTR. The glass vial that Galadriel gives to Frodo makes a lot more sense when one is familiar with the curse laid on Feanor's kin regarding the Silmarills. It makes her action of giving a one (even if it were only the mere reflection of one) willingly to someone not of her kin and not even of her race a very huge and noble act. It brings tears to my eyes every time. But then again I'm a nerd for Tolkien and a complete Ringer. I wouldn't even suggest someone reading Silmarillion unless they have digested LOTR forward and backward. It does set the stage for LOTR events, but in a backwards looking sort of way. Reading The Sil first would just be confusing. That book is definitely only for mature LOTR loving teens or adults. Edited November 9, 2012 by Walking-Iris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss Tick Posted November 9, 2012 Share Posted November 9, 2012 Thanks everyone! I am such a nerd. I thought the Hobbit was part of the trilogy, so we don't even have it. duh. I will put LOTR aside for now and find a copy of the Hobbit. I wonder if the map of Middle Earth applies to the Hobbit too? We found an audiobook version at the library which was nice. That way someone else got to sing the songs and try to do 13 different dwarf voices. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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