# Minimum Age to Read "The Lord of the Rings" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 19, 2011, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-age-to-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/589538 "2011-07-19T02:28:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![mac\_bolan00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@mac\_bolan00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mac_bolan00)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-age-to-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/589538/21 "2011-07-19T11:45:38Z")
hmmm… you guys really think so? my kid’s bright enough, methinks. but before the hobbit, i’ll test her with “call me Ishmael…” my daughter’s name is matilda, by the way. 🙂 i at least read “the whale” when i was 8. it’s still in me. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-age-to-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/589538/22 "2011-07-19T11:59:56Z")
I got through them in seventh grade, but didn’t enjoy them - I still don’t. Did understand them, there really isn’t a lot of heavy subtext in LotRs. I’ve read them through twice since then - about every ten years - in a search for “what am I missing?” I’m not a big fantasy reader, but had I gotten my hands on fantasy I enjoyed out of the gate instead of LotRs - who knows? I got through Anna Karenina that year too, which I didn’t understand (I got the plot, not really the subtext) and several other heavy duty classics. Loved the translation I had of Anna Karenina. My English teacher in seventh grade pointed me at LotRs after I had read Anna Karenina…she thought it might be more understandable (and I think was really afraid I’d reach for Lolita next). ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-age-to-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/589538/23 "2011-07-19T12:04:52Z")
It really depends on the child–not just their “reading level”, but the sort of thing they like and their tolerance with frustration. I read them in middle school and missed tons, but I enjoyed the hell out of them and rereading them each year or so was like a whole new experience each time as I discovered layers I had missed. Honestly, I think you are probably a bit optimistic to think that you’re going to have all that much influence over her reading habits: unless you plan to outright ban things (which seems like a bad idea to me: why not let a kid try?) or outright demand things (again, good luck by the time she’s a sophomore), at most your can nudge towards or away. ---
**Author:** ![DragonAsh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DragonAsh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DragonAsh)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-age-to-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/589538/24 "2011-07-19T12:14:28Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > I should say: much younger, I read [this wonderful illustrated edition of the Hobbit](http://www.amazon.com/Hobbit-J-R-Tolkien/dp/0261102664/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1311051994&sr=8-7). Sure it’s abridged some, but it introduced me to the rest of it. Just to chime in here, that is a truly lovely book. Highly recommended. ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-age-to-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/589538/25 "2011-07-19T12:57:12Z")
I read it at eleven, which was a good age for me. > [@njtt](#): > > A large part of the charm of LOTR, I think, is the feeling that there is much more here than the surface story, that there are vast hidden depths to both the story and to the world it is set in. Yes, that’s one of the major attractions of the book. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-age-to-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/589538/26 "2011-07-19T13:15:17Z")
> [@mac\_bolan00](#): > > nearly all of my friends and relatives read it at college level or higher. i felt my appreciation (and theirs) as a result was far better than had we read in high school or earlier. i know several high school readers who had trouble understanding the ring’s power. i’ll let my kid read harry potter while still in primary school but defer LOTR until all the hype has gone down, maybe in her sophomore year. would you agree? I was 9 when I started reading The Hobbit and got a copy of LOTR for my 11th birthday. I started by re-reading The Hobbit and finished LOTR in less than 3 weeks. I had no trouble keeping the characters or the action straight in my head\* and thoroughly enjoyed the book. \*I came home from school one day to find my mother holding _The Return Of The King_ in her hands. She opened to the synopsis and started quizzing me about the characters: who’s Gandalf, who’s Aragorn, who’s Minas Morgul ("it’s a ‘what’, Mom"), etc. She had opened the book while I was at school and couldn’t believe I could keep track of so much stuff, so she was quizzing me to make sure I understood what I was reading. Good times! ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-age-to-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/589538/27 "2011-07-19T14:48:20Z")
I read **The Hobbit** when I was about seven, and the rest of **LOTR** not long after. I remember being irritated by a lot of it; I’d think, “Jeez, does every tiny little place really need a name of its own?” and, “Man, the whole trip through Mordor is just page after page of ‘I can’t make it, Sam’, ‘But you must, Frodo’, over and over again.” I’d moved on to Stephen King by the time I was 11. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-age-to-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/589538/28 "2011-07-19T14:52:30Z")
I read it in the 5th grade for the first time. I didn’t have any trouble following it. It has a lot of nouns (people, places and things!) but as stories go, it’s quite a simple one. Tolkein hated subtext. By college I had probably re-read it 5 or 6 times through. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-age-to-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/589538/29 "2011-07-19T14:55:05Z")
It’s not so much that I think it was _ideal_ for me to have stumbled across and plunged into the books at 11… it’s that, _having_ done so, I can’t say it was a bad thing, for me. But if I’d not found them until later, that would have been fine. Fourteen or fifteen would have been a good time for me to read them, too, and I can certainly see how for some people some years past that would be better for them. I’d offer my kids Narnia and Prydain books first, as **Chronos** said. ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-age-to-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/589538/30 "2011-07-19T14:56:43Z")
I think I was about 11 when I first read it, like several others here. I certainly didn’t get all of it at the time, but every time I reread it I get new things from it. Like a couple of other people have said, that’s about once a year. If your daughter wants to read it, and has read and enjoyed The Hobbit, I can see no reason not to let her. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-age-to-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/589538/31 "2011-07-19T15:01:06Z")
> [@asterion](#): > > …There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs. Thank you for this! I read LOTR in high school and am sure I wouldn’t have gotten nearly as much out of it if I’d read it sooner. Our 11-year-old has read _The Hobbit_ but I hope and expect it’ll be at least several years yet before he moves on to LOTR. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-age-to-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/589538/32 "2011-07-19T15:36:18Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > I got through them in seventh grade, but didn’t enjoy them - I still don’t. Did understand them, there really isn’t a lot of heavy subtext in LotRs. I’ve read them through twice since then - about every ten years - in a search for “what am I missing?” > [@Hello\_Again](#): > > I read it in the 5th grade for the first time. I didn’t have any trouble following it. It has a lot of nouns (people, places and things!) but as stories go, it’s quite a simple one. Tolkein hated subtext. Well, Tolkien said he hated _allegory_–one kind of subtext–but some of his readers don’t even _believe_ him at that. But regardless of his intentions, the story is rich enough for people to _find_ a range of subtexts and resonances. ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-age-to-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/589538/33 "2011-07-19T15:42:31Z")
My daughter read LOTR at age 8, before I had let her read HP (she was already familiar with _The Hobbit_). It was her dad’s suggestion; I was surprised. I was even more surprised that she finished it, since I tried to read it at 13, got bogged down in TTT, and quit. I don’t suppose that she understood more than half of it–if that–but she enjoyed it. After that I let her read HP, figuring that if murderous Uruk-Hai didn’t faze her then Dementors probably wouldn’t either. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-age-to-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/589538/34 "2011-07-19T15:53:46Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > Well, Tolkien said he hated _allegory_–one kind of subtext–but some of his readers don’t even _believe_ him at that. But regardless of his intentions, the story is rich enough for people to _find_ a range of subtexts and resonances. Not complex ones vital for really understanding the purpose of the book that would to put it beyond the reach of an intelligent fifth grader, which was my point. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-age-to-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/589538/35 "2011-07-19T16:12:00Z")
> [@Max\_Torque](#): > > I remember being irritated by a lot of it; I’d think… “Man, the whole trip through Mordor is just page after page of ‘I can’t make it, Sam’, ‘But you must, Frodo’, over and over again.” Then “[How Lord of the Rings _Should_ Have Ended](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yqVD0swvWU)” might be more to your liking. 🙂 Getting back on topic, I read LOTR at just shy of 14, and loved it. Sure, I didn’t get as much out of it on the first reading as I might’ve if I’d waited, but since I was still seeing new things in it on repeated readings well into my 30s, I don’t exactly see a problem there. And what **Manda JO** said about influencing your kid’s reading habits. First, get your kids hooked on books, then let them read what they will. ---
**Author:** ![Lasciel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e79b87/32.png) [@Lasciel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lasciel)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-age-to-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/589538/36 "2011-07-19T16:21:01Z")
The Hobbit provided my bedtime stories from as far back as I can remember (3.5ish, maybe earlier). I had already gotten through Narnia in publication order, then in chronological order before I turned 6. I remember it because my 6th birthday present from my aunt was LoTR, and she had said that I couldn’t have it until I had read Narnia both ways. So, LoTR started at 6. It was the subject of dinner conversation for a LONG TIME. Mom was big into explaining and relating stuff, and Dad liked the war/peace and industrial/countryside themes. I learned a lot about industrialization and the WWs through Lewis and Tolkien. I was a little disgruntled about the lack of girls, but none of the scary stuff really bothered me. I don’t think there was anything that I didn’t get, or rather, didn’t get explained to me when I didn’t understand. The only thing I had trouble with for a long time (I read it through every year because I’m a big dork) is the vast difference in elven lifespans. There are several childishly scrawled “family trees” of Elrond and Aragorn and all the past kings in the family scrapbook where I was obviously not grasping the vast expanses of time involved. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-age-to-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/589538/37 "2011-07-19T16:23:22Z")
I think the real question is what the \*\*maximum \*\*age is to read LofR. We went through this at length several years ago. My contention was - and still is - that people who read the book at a maximum of college age tend to love and adore the work and treasure it forever. Those who read it first at older ages tend to wonder what all the fuss is about, or worse, see nothing but the myriad of flaws. This isn’t universal, but the correlations are extremely high. It might be that children read the book as a book, the way Tolkien intended, and adults read it as allegory, which adults can’t help but do. As allegory it’s heavy-handed and offputting. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-age-to-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/589538/38 "2011-07-19T16:26:02Z")
I tried when I was 11 or 12. I got through Moria, loved it, couldn’t’ put it down. After Moria, I started to get bored. I made it through Fellowship and up to Boromir’s death at the start of Two Towers. I quit. During college, I read the whole thing and liked it a lot. I read it again last year(I was 32) and adored it. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-age-to-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/589538/39 "2011-07-19T16:29:17Z")
Quoth **spark240** : > [@](#): > > I’d offer my kids Narnia and Prydain books first, as Chronos said. Actually, let me amend that: I’d _start_ them on Narnia and Prydain first. But both of those series mature considerably over their courses: _Taran Wanderer_ and _The Last Battle_ are both at a significantly older reading level than _Lord of the Rings_. Quoth **Lasciel** : > [@](#): > > The only thing I had trouble with for a long time (I read it through every year because I’m a big dork) is the vast difference in elven lifespans. There are several childishly scrawled “family trees” of Elrond and Aragorn and all the past kings in the family scrapbook where I was obviously not grasping the vast expanses of time involved. That didn’t hit me until I read _The Silmarillion_, and saw Galadriel. "Huh, I thought that the Elves didn’t reuse names. Oh, wait… ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-age-to-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/589538/40 "2011-07-19T16:32:42Z")
I read them the first time in second grade. I remember I enjoyed them quite a bit, but there were some really tough stretches to get through. I actually skipped the whole council of Elrond, skimming forward until the chapters got back to the action. I also recall enjoying the appendices with all of the runes, language, and family trees. IMO, you can read them at almost any level, but get vastly different perspectives from what ages you read them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-age-to-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/589538.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-age-to-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/589538.md?page=3)