This book review is long in coming, because while I’ve read the book before, I wanted to wait until my kids (9, 10) were old enough to appreciate it before reading it again, this time aloud. We weren’t disappointed.

When dealing with a book as classic as this, there’s no point in reviewing its virtues and vices. It’s an expertly drawn tale set within a world of genius invention, and no one can argue otherwise. In fact, I’d propose that anyone with something against The Hobbit really only has something against its genre rather than against the book itself. I know, because that’s been me.

I’ve written elsewhere about my general aversion to fantasy literature, which is why I didn’t read The Chronicles of Narnia until my late 30s when I read them as bedtime fairytales to my kids. Likewise, when I read The Hobbit long ago, I did so only on audio and because it was the only book-on-cassette I could find at the time. Even then, I wasn’t really a fan of the book, because I couldn’t cross that mental bridge from stories I love to stories about goblins and dwarves and magic.

The process through which I’ve grown to appreciate the fantasy genre was long and riddled with failure. In fact, for a long while, I couldn’t even make it through most fantasy movies (LoTR excluded), let alone fantasy books. Whenever I read, I want to escape, and I can’t escape when surrounded by such unbelievable characters as fairies and elves! That’s why I still can’t stand the Marvel and DC universes and their movies. It’s all so childish.

But good thing I have kids! Thankfully, both of my kids eat this stuff up (especially my 9yo daughter), which gives me an excuse to delve back in and try it all once more. We’ve made it through Narnia and enjoyed nearly every book in the series. We’re slowly working our way through the Harry Potter books (currently on Book 4, The Goblet of Fire), so what better time to test them with Tolkien?

As I’ve moved through the Narnia series among other fantastic tales, I’ve admittedly grown to appreciate the worlds and creatures depicted. The thanks is largely due to C.S. Lewis himself who, in his other writings, often explained why worlds of fantasy could actually assist us in our spiritual walks within this temporal world. Devin Brown’s spiritual biography of Lewis, A Life Observed, delves deeply into such writings. In it he quotes a few of Lewis’ works:

Lewis wrote…how “the Pagan stories are God expressing Himself through the minds of poets, using such images as He found there” and how the story of Christ is “a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened” (CLI, 977). (Brown, A Life Observed, 66)

“Myth in general is not merely misunderstood history (as Euhemerus thought) nor diabolical illusion (as some of the Father thought) or priestly lying (as the philosophers of the Enlightenment thought) but, at its best, a real though unfocused gleam of divine truth falling on human imagination.” (C.S. Lewis, Miracles, 134)

I’ve been reading Lewis’ own autobiography, Surprised by Joy, and he touches on it there as well. Particularly in explaining what drew him into writing over merely playing, se writes that “You can do more with a castle in a story than any cardboard castle that ever stood on a nursery table.” (C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy)

I love from Surprised by Joy, too, Lewis’ explanation of the things he feared the most, like specters and spiders. He hated insects, for as one author wrote, they’re like steam engines with the works on the outside, the exoskeleton being a seemingly unnatural thing. He notes how female domination and the power of the collective also turn his idea of the natural order on its head. These musings certainly play a lot into the fantasy genre, as in, what if the human concept of “the natural order” were actually the minority view in a world of many creatures? It’s an interesting thought!”

My knowledge of the Tolkien-Lewis connection, the Inklings, and their various reading habits of the 1930s is surface-level at best, but having enjoyed The Hobbit as much as I have, I’m definitely ready to research these things further. Would I enjoy George McDonald, for example? While witches and wizards will not soon become my go-to leisure reading on my own time, I’ll be happy to continue dipping into such streams during my family reading time. Once we finish Harry Potter, for example, we could continue Frank L. Baum’s series past The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Or perhaps we’ll be soon ready for more substantial mythology, like that in Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series.

Of course as a parent, I want to make sure that my kids grow in their reading habits, both mentally and spiritually. I want to see them stretch their minds, exploring with their God-given imaginations, and yet remaining grounded in reality as well. I hope that all the genres they enjoy will help them to understand better the foundations of our worldview: God, man, sin, and redemption. Where fantasy books fail, for instance, biographies will help.

It’s not enough for me to know that my kids are well-rounded: they must be well-grounded as well, and my being an active part in developing their reading habits is a huge part of that. I am responsible to “train up my children in the way they should go,” and teaching them discernment in this world is essential to that ministry.

If you’re not yet in the habit of reading to your kids or grandkids, I strongly suggest you try. If you don’t yet have kids, make this a goal of your eventual parenting. You’ll not regret it.

©2022 E.T.