The road goes ever on and on...

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

Grace, age 10, is my little reader. Over the course of the summer, between 4th and 5th grades, she devoured a lot of books, not the least of which were all 7 of the Harry Potter books (4,193 pages in total). She reads new books as fast as we can find them for her.

Tonight, when getting ready for bed, she asked me if we had anything else for her to read. A thought occurred to me. We went down to the living room ("library") and I took a sacred book off the shelf. The Hobbit. If she can read all seven books of Harry Potter, she can certainly read this. She may even be disappointed/underwhelmed by The Hobbit. I hope not. It is a book that holds a special place in my heart, and I hope she enjoys it. And after that, I hope she reads and enjoys The Lord of the Rings.

I can't help but to wonder what a kid these days will think of these books, having been exposed to a lot more than I ever was at that age, just in terms of what she will have seen in movies and on TV.

These were magical books to me. I hope they are to her as well.

Far over the Misty Mountains cold,
To dungeons deep and caverns old,
We must away, ere break of day,
To seek our pale enchanted gold.