Is Lord of the Rings ok for an 8 year old?

When I was about eight or nine or 10 years old, I read The Hobbit and I loved it.
I tried to read the Lord of the rings and I really didn't like it it was not at all the same.

To me, it was like the difference between reading Stephen King's short story "the body" (in which the movie "stand by me" was based on) and reading something else a little more hardcore written by Stephen King.
(Or you might say the difference between Harry Potter book number1 and Harry Potter book number 7? The themes are just that much more grown up and the idea is just that much more scary...)

I would suggest that she moves to a different author but same genre and in a few years if she wants to try the Lord of the Rings, go for it...absolutely 100% always encourage a voracious Young reader. Kudos to you and to your daughter!!

There was nothing wrong with Lewis' storyline, it was far better than the one made up for the film

I've forgotten the film, though I do remember thinking the boy who played Eustace was good.

Sometimes you can see why parts of a book couldn't be filmed, or had to be left out - for length if no other reason. But it's supremely arrogant for a film maker to presume to think they know better than the author about the story she/he set out to tell.

The Eagle and the Child where they used to meet shut in 2020 but there are plans afoot to re-open it.

I'd have thought it would be a popular tourist spot. They could have historical info and photos, as Wetherspoons do. And all the Inklings' books displayed. Generations of O Level Eng Lit students remember Nevill Coghill for his edition of The Canterbury Tales! Didn't Morse drink there too? But not Lord Peter, the Mitre was his place as I recall.

I always loved the Dawn Treader too.

Have very very rarely re-read The Last Battle, though.

I was so very disappointed at the Voyage of the Dawn Treader film. Half the places they visited missed out and a different storyline as to why the trip was being made. There was nothing wrong with Lewis' storyline, it was far better than the one made up for the film - but that's the problem with films they are never how you imagine they should be

Ohhh Dawn Treader is a superb book

The Magician's Nephew is my favourite.

I’d give that second place. The Voyage of Dawntreader is not just the best of the Narnia books (imo), it’s the best children’s book I have ever read.

I don't have a copy sadly, I borrowed from the library.

Have a look a the forum, you will find nerdship beyond your wildest imaginations

I read it at 9, to prove a point to my brother. Would say a lot of it went over my head and there were themes I was too young for. Would agree with others to wait a bit. But I was very smug when I told him I'd finished it.

Interestingly I tried to read it again as a young adult and couldn't get into it at all. So in a way Im glad I did it when I did!

@Purplebunnie Yes I have read The Inklings- still have it somewhere. I am a Tolkien nerd myself but I do find some fellow nerds a bit intense about the whole thing.

Have you read the Inklings by Humprey Carpenter I read it many many years ago. The Eagle and the Child where they used to meet shut in 2020 but there are plans afoot to re-open it.

When the films were in production I used to follow The Tolkien Forum but later on it all got a bit too high brow for me. I occasionally pop in and have a look but most of the people I used to chat with have left

Tolkien and Lewis used to share their work with the Inklings while it was in progress. One of the group (Neville Coghill I think) greeted the latest chapter of LOTR with ‘Not another f…..g elf!’. Tolkien disapproved of TLTWATW because he disliked allegory. Though LOTR is heavily influenced by Christianity.

I read them all to my DD (who loved books, but didn’t like reading) - except the Last Battle. As a Sunday-school going child I’d understood the religious subtext of the others and didn’t like that one at all - poor Susan.

This besides the point but having read this thread I have just read the Weirdstone of Brisingamen again & am now on to the Moon of Gomrath.
I read these when I was 8. I am now in my 60s 😊. The dialogue is more stilted than I remember & much less "scary" but still exciting. Much less scary than eg Shelob's lair but an avaricious reader I think may like them. I am going to re read the Narnia series after this. Which is a great suggestion and definitely in my favourite books when I was 8

For context I am reading these after finishing the Slow Horses books ( haven't watched the TV series but will )

@Dappy777 - Yes I think Tolkien and Lewis were friends at Oxford and met in a pub (The Eagle & Child? ) with a group they called the Inklings. I loved both of their work & so rooted in culture ( whether Anglo Saxon or religious ) in a way I had no idea about when I first read them.

Anyway hope @Greenpeanutsnail has lots on her list for her DD. Some of these books I would love to read for the first time at that age , because I loved them. And it's a magical thing I think to read things for the first time which you remember decades on.

E Nesbit's fantasy stories -

Five Children and it
The Phoenix and the Carpet
The Story of the Amulet

The House of Arden

The Enchanted Castle

(The Magician's Nephew owes a lot to E Nesbit)

Oh, now you've reminded me about the Snow Spider books by Jenny Nimmo. Absolutely superb, I loved them as a child, all full of Welsh magic. My 11yo has a copy, but hasn't been inspired to actually read them 😭 Maybe I'll pinch it off her and read it to her sister...

Moondial, by Helen Creswell, is a fabulous book, which I read obsessively at around that age (after devouring The Hobbit and Narnia). My children have both really enjoyed it too.

I also loved a book called The Gauntlet by Ronald Welch, which is about a boy who goes back in time to medieval Wales from the 1950s. He gets up to all sorts of adventures, and I learned loads about that period in history without realising it!

Good shout on Narnia. I most enjoyed the horse and his boy from the series.

I didn't read LotRs until I was in my 40s and can honestly say that the Shelob chapter was the scariest thing I have ever read. It scared the living daylights out of me. I thought Cormac McCarthy and Thomas Hardy were dark, but Tolkien's Mordor goes darker even than them. Tolkien had a strong sense of the nature of evil, and it's the closest I have ever got to a description of Hell.

That said, I am a total wimp and can't sit through a horror film. Plus, children do like to be a little scared.

If your daughter liked The Hobbit, why not encourage her to read the Narnia books? Tolkien and Lewis were close friends and had similar imaginations (they read one another's works and listened to one another's advice). Personally, I much prefer Lewis and consider him the better writer.

Apologies if I've missed it, but has anyone mentioned the Narnia series yet? I'm guessing the religious symbolism is less welcome than when I was a kid, but it all went straight over my head.

Tuppeny upright, too!

I read it at 10 but I hadn’t read the Hobbit, so I had nothing to compare it to. I loved it, still do!

It depends what you regard as inappropriate. No sex but parts can be frightening. The bits with "the watcher in the water" by The Mines of Moria and the encounter with the balrog are quite scary. Best not read just before bed!

In my head the first bit rhymed with 'rising', and the other two syllables were more of an afterthought.