board77

I'm curious about something I noticed in the Book Banning thread in the Symposium. Most of the posters here seem to have been advanced readers as children, reading well beyond their age level. It made me wonder, is this a coincidence or is there a connection here. When we read Tolkien first we we advanced enough to tackle the volume and complexity of the text while also being young enough to approach the novels with the right amount of innocence and adventure. An older teenager is normally more cynical and might well scoff at the idealised world created by Tolkien, whereas the younger teenager (or even younger in many cases) is capable of being swept up in the tale.

So, is it a coincidence?

Cheers,
Alatar

Although I was an advanced, voracious and omnivorous reader as a child I never came across Tolkien's work until I was about 17, before all the psychedelic hype started and when he was still a little obscure. Natch I fell in love with it straightaway. I read LOTR first then caught up with the other books bit by bit. I never felt that it clashed with an adolescent world view but then I wasn't too normal anyway. I had always loved the world of mythology, especially of the North and had read some sagas, Burnt Njall and Ghisli's saga still stick in the mind. Tolkien simply talked my language.

I was a voracious reader as a kid. Read everything in sight!

Had The Hobbit read to me at age 8.

Read LOTR when I was 21.

I was a voracious reader also, but I did not try Tolkien until the movies. I tried on fantasy book when I was 15. It was horrible. Soured me on the whole genre.

I suppose I better add that I read The Lord of the Rings when I was 12. The Hobbit a few years earlier.

(I'm currently reading the Graphic Novel of the Hobbit to my kids aged 6 and 3)

Alatar

I read Hobbit & LOTR at around 10 but I don't consider myself an advanced reader. I'm probably above average but probably most any college grad will be above average.

I had the Hobbit read to me when I was eight, and because my mom wouldn't read it to me again immediately, I read it myself. I read LOTR the next year, when I was nine and ten. That said, LOTR kind of went over my head a bit, so I didn't really read it and get it until I was 13, and that was that.

I don't know if I'm an advanced reader. . . I had no friends for a good long while, so I ended up reading a lot, to the point of never leaving the house, no matter what, without at least one book in hand. I suspect quantity may have stepped in place of quality.

Well, we're not just Tolkien readers—we're Tolkien readers who choose to socialize on a messageboard. In other words, we like to write—a lot.

And this is a board where most people spend at least some of their time writing "serious" posts. Some of our members, in fact, really ought to publish Collected Essays. So being facile isn't enough to really be at home here; you have to be able to convey complicated ideas, and understand other people's responses. In other words, we're mostly very good at writing.

I'd argue that people who write well are people who have read a lot. Our reading just happens to have included Tolkien.

Quote:

Some of our members, in fact, really ought to publish Collected Essays.

I have honestly considered the possibility of looking into publishing the Moral Universe threads.

And Teremia's m00bies reads the b00ks thread would make as good a published analysis of LOTR as anything that is out there.

But I digress.

I think it might be reasonable to generalize that Tolkien fans are people that tend to be dissatisfied with "the real world" and the values (or lack thereof) in it. I also think that Tolkien fans could be said to be people who enjoy things with a considerable amount of depth. I think those two things do combine to make us, in some sense or another, "advanced readers."

I was always an above-level reader but I didn't read any Tolkien until I turned 20. I hadn't ever heard of him or come across him. Neither had my parents so that explains a lot.

Prim wrote:

In other words, we like to write—a lot.

I don't know if I can agree with that. I really don't like writing. I like socializing though and that's what I feel like I'm really doing here...discussing things with people and not writing. I always loathed having to write papers in school and never was one for keeping a diary. Very rarely as a child would the creative need to write kick in and it very quickly diminished once I'd actually try to start writing. I've always loved to read a lot though. It allows me to experience something creative without having to create it.

Voronwe wrote:

I also think that Tolkien fans could be said to be people who enjoy things with a considerable amount of depth.

I can agree with that.

I began to read at 4 and was quite fluent by 5. Ever since, I'll read pretty much anything, anywhere. I'll reread the same books for the 20th time, I'll even get through a patently poor book because reading creates vivid, brilliant pictures in my head and even a dumb book can spark some ideas of my own.

That said, I first read LOTR when I was 20 and The Hobbit a few years later. I fell in love with the books and reread them every year.

And yes, I do love to write. Or at least to think about writing.

Voronwe wrote:

I think it might be reasonable to generalize that Tolkien fans are people that tend to be dissatisfied with "the real world" and the values (or lack thereof) in it.

I need to think this over. It is true that I very often escape into the imaginary worlds in my head, sometimes screening out real people around me to spend more time with the characters I invent. But I'm not sure that this is because I'm "dissatisfied" with the real world. I really think it's the process of creation that attracts me, and the ease with which my lazy self can construct and deconstruct those creations without ever *doing* anything.

I dunno how advanced I am but I was reading by age 4. Read voraciously through childhood, (we didn't own a television ... my mother refused to have one in the house) and was reading adult literature by 10 or so. I also had the decided advantage of a good English grammar school education where we were expected to read, understand and critique the classics.

I was 22 when I discovered Tolkien. The Hobbit I've only read once. After reading LOTR I had no desire to return to, what to me is, a children's book. LOTR, however, resonated with the very first reading. I was particularly taken with Galadriel's temptation and Lothlorien. Somehow I managed to get 'inside the song' if you know what I mean and the Elves became, still are, very real for me. I think of them as just around the corner, just out of sight ... in some parallel universe ... but occasionally, I think I may have caught a glimpse through peripheral vision.

I started reading at 4, too, as did all my kids. We all just picked it up from being read to—kid in lap, book in kid's lap, sometimes other kid snuggled in next to parent.

I see those electronic toys that "read" books to children and shudder.

Ah Prim, you need to see those as just another tool for education. I read to my kids, and my daughter is learning to read. I spend time with her, of course, but nowhere near as much time as she can spend with her leap-pad. Now she can read the leap-pad books and when she hits a word she doesn't recognise she can have the leap-pad read it to her, spell it, or sound out the word phoenetically for her. I think they are one of the most astounding advances in education I have ever seen. They encourage her to read on her own while helping to teach her when she has problems. Plus, it's play to her, not work. They also have games that progress with age levels so that where the earlier games say "touch the car" the later games are more word based like "touch the word that says Car".

I say this as a voracious reader who also reads to his kids. Leap-pads are the finest educational tool to appear in years. They truly are the ideal that all educational games and toys should be measured against.

Alatar

Well, that's very different.

My kids were too early for those. There were these electronic books kids could have read to them by pressing buttons, I think.

Something like you describe could be wonderful, as long as it's in addition to being snuggled and read to. It's just that I suspect that some parents buy their kids toys like that and assume that the whole "reading" thing is covered by that. When what is needed, of course, is to brainwash the kid—bring her up to associate reading with warmth, coziness, love, and snuggles, as well as interest and excitement.

Sassafras wrote:

I was particularly taken with Galadriel's temptation and Lothlorien.

Me too Sass. Lothlorien is my favorite part.

I hated reading as a kid. Really did. LOTR was really the only book I read. I only started to read regularly when I had a job that involved being on a train for two hours each way, for six months. That was only 11 years ago.

Leap-pads are the finest educational tool to appear in years.

I'm glad to hear that, Alatar. At my daughter's request I bought a leap pad for my granddaughter on her second birthday. I don't see her playing with it too much when the whole family is together, but she's still pretty young (almost 3) and needs help setting things up. I'll have to pay more attention to that when I babysit her alone.

As for reading myself, yeah - as soon as I knew what a book was, I didn't want anything else for a present. We made weekly trips to the library as early as I can remember.

Jn

I was reading before I entered the first grade, although exactly how and when that happened I really don't recall. I asked my mom about it once, and she said that when I was about four, I started reading illustrated storybooks along with her during our bedtime ritual. I think it was about then that she started reading "chapter books" to me, the first ones that I recall being by Thornton Burgess.............I adored Reddy Fox and Old Mother West Wind His stories are the first that I clearly remember reading independently, probably at around age six.

I've never been a particularly voracious reader, although I always have a book "in hand". I have friends who are so addicted to reading that they'll devour any book, even if it doesn't really appeal to them. They can go through an amazing number and variety of books while I happily stroll along with one or two during the same period of time.

I didn't read LOTR until it was given to me on my 16th birthday in 1968, when it was reaching such popularity with the "flower power" crowd. Appropriately enough, my parents bought it for me that summer in San Francisco. As soon as I read the words, "Well, I'm back", I went back to the beginning and started again. My favourite chapter was "Treebeard", and I clearly recall reading it twice through before continuing on with the story, just so I could "hear" the language again. I really think it was the rich feel of Tolkien's language that hooked me even more than the tale itself. I don't think I even considered any of its underlying themes until my second or third reading.

There are two boys in my Grade Five class who successfully made it through LOTR this year. Since the movies came out, I've seen quite a number of resolute ten and eleven year old kids attempt to read it, but only a few really succeed. These two boys are part of an extra-curricular literacy enrichment group that I "mentor", and we've had some great "chapter discussions" together (they love to compare book to movie ). Interestingly, they are both extremely strong writers for their age as well.

Prim wrote:

Something like you describe could be wonderful, as long as it's in addition to being snuggled and read to. It's just that I suspect that some parents buy their kids toys like that and assume that the whole "reading" thing is covered by that. When what is needed, of course, is to brainwash the kid—bring her up to associate reading with warmth, coziness, love, and snuggles, as well as interest and excitement.

Prim, did you know that there is quite a bit of research going into this very idea? An increasing number of kids are coming into the school system exhibiting language deficiencies, which really cause them problems in many areas of the curriculum -- reading, writing, listening to and processing information, conveying ideas orally..........it's a BIG concern. Researchers are now concluding that close physical contact while reading with very young children is extremely important. The "flow" of language -- inflection, pattern, rhyme and beat -- is evidently assimilated more successfully if the child is feeling it physically as it is being spoken/read. And guess what? Rhyming seems to be one of the most powerful kinds of early language experience there is, and nursery rhymes in particular seem to have some kind of special quality within this greater realm. In my own school district, a recent survey showed that only about a third of the children entering kindergarten could independently recall a simple rhyme like "Jack be nimble", and a disheartening number could not even provide the second line to "Twinkle, twinkle little star". The district's Speech and Language Specialist is now desperately trying to put together something to help Kindergarten and Grade One teachers fill in the gaps, but says that what will continue to be missed is that all-important one-to-one "snuggle" that you talked about.

I'm not sure I could say how 'advanced' I am, but I do read a lot. My mother (bless her! ) was instrumental in that, I was reading by the time I was four too.


I had read both the Hobbit and LOTR by the time I was about eight, the Sil not for several years after that.



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