On this day (September 21) in 1937, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit was published. Written as a children’s story for his three sons and one daughter, the book has delighted millions of kids and adults for 85 years. To me, it is the best place to begin reading Tolkien. I read it as part of a class assignment in the sixth grade (way back in 1977!). The photo depicts the edition I read for many years. Here, I’ll get you started:
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
