Hacker News Reader

Comment by danielodievich | Hacker News Reader

We read LOTR to our sons when they were little. It was likely the 6th time for me,and 3rd in English. Stupendous experience. The command of the English Tolkien had is sublime. Wish the movies didn't take so much liberty with Faramir.!!!

View on HN

Yep, read LoTR to my daughters before the film came out. (Thankfully.)

As promising as Fellowship was, the films just kept going down hill—one after the other.

As the girls were growing up we worked through all the Harry Potter books, a half-dozen of the "colored Fairy" books (edited by Andrew Lang), plenty of Uncle Remus tales, the "Little House" books and a number of Sid Fleischman books…

Those were magical years. Only when homework arrived did the reading hour finally come to a close. :-(

How old were they when you started?

I'm bang in the middle of a reread now; I've lost count of how many there've been. I'm 55 now, having first read it in my early teens, and it's astonishing how it just keeps growing and changing with you. Even after all these years, I'm still surprised by a painterly description of a cloud, or the sense of comfortable rootedness of a little Shire lane, or a little "aha, I never noticed that correlation before, that's what those orcs were doing", or "hmm, that's an odd word to put in that sentence, I wonder why he picked it?" followed by a fascinating bit of research.

I've recently started the Letters too, and can thoroughly recommend it. It's fascinating and oddly cosy to get a direct tap into a mind you know so well at second hand, through its fiction.

I am currently reading The Hobbit to my son, who is 5 years old and not quite able to read it by himself yet. Nearly, but it's a lot for him to get through. Some evenings I use my Kindle, some evenings I use the copy I've owned since I was 11.

However now he has started to write stories about dragons and things, and that's a pretty interesting development.

For younger kids I can heartily recommend the Hobbit illustrated by Jemima Catlin- has plenty of pictures to them engaged. Read it to my 6 year old and we’re now excited for LotR.

Oh, this looks excellent, thanks :-)

I can't wait to read LOTR to my (now four-year-old) son. Been looking forward to it since we started trying for a kid. Seriously, peak fatherhood moment. I'll savor it. That (and a few others are) on the embargo list: he's not allowed to see the film before we read the books. I wish I'd got Winnie the Pooh on there in time.

You're at a good time for The Hobbit. Strangely I find that Winnie the Pooh does not age well and is an awkward read.

The Wind in the Willows is good beginning around that age too.

Really? I still love Winnie the Pooh, but I grew up with him so I’m somewhat biased. But I love the whimsy and musicality in the language.

Yeah, I'd have thought so. The lad's a little behind on appreciating narrative, though. Loves books, but can't yet focus on anything that isn't ~= pictures::words. It's fine; he'll get there.

Love both Pooh, and Wind in the Willows, and will enjoy seeing how they take him.

I feel like winnie the pooh won't lose much from having seen the film version beforehand, but also the books had the kind of whimsical humour that I enjoyed a lot more in college than I did as a kid.

When I was about 10, I read the Hobbit to my younger brother (8), over a large number of half-hour car trips. It's one my prouder memories of that time.

I've not braved reading them LOTR yet, but my sons are still getting read to even as one's about to become a teenager; it's some of my favourite time in the evening and it allows me to force them through books just slightly too advanced, with lots of them stopping me to explain (or me stopping to editorialize, and provide historical context etc).

I don't know how long they'll let me keep doing it for, but I don't see any reason to stop

Well done, when I was growing up we would always have some time in the evening when we would read a book out loud. When we were younger my parents would read and as we got older we would read sometimes too. I tried the same with my daughter but she stopped wanting to when she was around 10, but she’s in a better space now two years on so I’m going to try to resurrect the custom. It’s a really lovely thing to do as a family, but as the article suggests is quite strange these days and it can be difficult and require discipline to make the time.

I strongly encourage you to do that. The selection of the material is key: you have to find something that she is going to find fascinating but could not read on her own due to missing vocabulary / context / idiom-and-allusion cultural awareness. Then you get to try to fill that in with asides as you go along, if she'll tolerate it. Good luck!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com