{"id":311,"date":"2009-02-01T11:07:11","date_gmt":"2009-02-01T15:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/?p=311"},"modified":"2009-02-01T11:07:11","modified_gmt":"2009-02-01T15:07:11","slug":"todays-challenge-the-hobbit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/todays-challenge-the-hobbit\/","title":{"rendered":"Today’s Challenge: The Hobbit"},"content":{"rendered":"

As usual, I’ll be spending my Sunday doing my homework: reading the book that will be discussed in this week’s book group at the library.\u00c2\u00a0 The teen book group meets this coming Tuesday, so today I’m reading The Hobbit <\/em>by J.R.R. Tolkien, a book that was chosen by one of the teens in the book group.<\/p>\n

99.99% of the time I view this homework assignment as a wonderful opportunity to keep up to date on recently published children’s and young adult literature, since most of our book choices are newly published.\u00c2\u00a0 I love reading, I love children’s and young adult literature, and I love facilitating these book groups each week, so it’s all good (though it’s always that much better in the wintertime, when I can read by the woodstove).\u00c2\u00a0 But I’ll admit that The Hobbit <\/em>falls into that .01% of the equation – I’ve struggled through this book several times, both on my own and while in grad school, and have never ever ever loved it.\u00c2\u00a0 Though I thought it was a great suggestion for the teen book group, I personally dreaded having to read it again.<\/p>\n

When I read The Hobbit <\/em>in grad school, I bought a fancy illustrated copy <\/a>of the book for myself, hoping that Michael Hague’s illustrations would make the reading more palatable.\u00c2\u00a0 They didn’t, and I ended up donating that copy to the children’s room collection (it’s been gratifying to see that many children have loved reading my donated copy).\u00c2\u00a0 So when it came time to read The Hobbit <\/em>this time around, at first I checked out that copy that I had donated.\u00c2\u00a0 But I realized that I had come to loath that yellow cover and Hague’s lush illustrations, and so I took a trip to the Concord Bookshop last week and bought a new copy<\/a> of the book for myself, one which is illustrated by the author.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

And something surprising happened when I began reading it yesterday: I actually liked the book.\u00c2\u00a0 Huh?\u00c2\u00a0 What a shocking surprise.\u00c2\u00a0 My reaction supports the reader response theory that time and place and mood can affect the reader’s opinion of the book.\u00c2\u00a0 This copy feels good in my hand, not too big, not too small, smooth and clean.\u00c2\u00a0 The colors of the cover make me happy.\u00c2\u00a0 The size of the font is just right – large enough to read, but small enough that the book remains a manageable size.\u00c2\u00a0 Tolkien’s illustrations and maps suit his text, the careful spidering lettering matching the tone of the book.\u00c2\u00a0 And I’m reading it on a beautiful sunny winter day, the sun reflecting off the snow outside.\u00c2\u00a0 The woodstove is cranked, the cats are taking turns in my lap, and Jim is in the porch playing guitar.<\/p>\n

All these things add up, and reading The Hobbit <\/em>doesn’t feel like a chore this time around.\u00c2\u00a0 And who knows, maybe I’ve finally reached the point in my life where this is the right book at the right time for me.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe I’m finally ready to read and understand and appreciate it.\u00c2\u00a0 I can only hope that the teens in the book group have a similarly positive experience with the book…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As usual, I’ll be spending my Sunday doing my homework: reading the book that will be discussed in this week’s book group at the library.\u00c2\u00a0 The teen book group meets this coming Tuesday, so today I’m reading The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, a book that was chosen by one of the teens in the book … Continue reading Today’s Challenge: The Hobbit<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-groups","category-young-adult-book-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}