After the failure to read Frankenstein to my son, making his eyes roll into the back of his head, we switched to The Hobbit.
As Frankenstein was such a failure I searched on the line for lists of the best children’s books. The Hobbit came up
frequently in the top 10. Life is too short to read bad books. Frankenstein wasn’t a bad book, it just wasn’t a good
children’s book. I had read The Hobbit decades ago but didn’t realize how masterful Tolkein’s prose was. All the
dwarves arriving at Bilbo’s house did draw my son into the story early, and even sections that I thought would bore him
kept his attention. May your beard never grow thin.
The Hobbit
