READER'S ROCK LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE VOL 2 ISSUE 4 NOVEMBER 2014 VOL 2 ISSUE 5 DECEMBER 2014 | Page 40

It's that time of year where everybody is bustling about
for one reason or other from the holidays to the erratic
weather. I'm coming off NaNoWriMo (National Novel
Writing Month – 50,000+ words in a month) and pleased
with the solid start I have on Immortal Machinations 2:
Arc of Curiosity. Of course, the end of NaNo marks the
beginning of a month of reading and watching movies as
I decompress and refocus. It also marks our countdown
to the release of the last installment of the Hobbit movie
trilogy. We are excited. Very excited. My kids have their
costumes ready, are counting down the days and we are
going to re-read The Hobbit (don't ask how many times
I've read it). This is especially significant for my kiddos
because starting in January we will be reading The Lord
of the Rings together for the first time.
So I've decided to make this month's WIOWI article a
homage to Tolkien since he has been so influential in my
life and now, the lives of my children. I confess that I
have not seen the cartoon version of The Lord of the
Rings but the animated version of The Hobbit continues
to bring me great joy. It was actually my first encounter
with anything Tolkien as my parents had not been
introduced to his work and consequently I was not
introduced until that fateful family movie night. It was
love at first sight. The characters and the story, though I
would come to think of them much differently after
reading the books (why did they make the dwarves so
silly looking?). Still, the animated Hobbit creates a
different brand of nostalgia as I remember going to the
library that very next week in search of the book that
spawned my new favorite movie.

Here is the part where childhood interfered with what
would become a beautiful relationship in my later years.
I read The Hobbit, cover to cover, in no time at all but I
was an active kid in an active family and my focus shifted
– a lot. In fact, I did not rediscover Tolkien until I was a
bit older, high school I would guess. I'd finished a
Stephen King phase then John Grisham and then Stephen
King again and then I was looking for something new. I
stumbled on a copy of The Hobbit at a thrift store and
bought it, remembering just how much I'd liked it as a
child. I read it again and enjoyed it yet again.
Enter The Lord of the Rings.
I polished off the trilogy in less than a week (even with
homework and sports and extracurriculars). It was
amazing. I re-read the series shortly thereafter and it
quickly became an annual ritual for me. Something about
the characters, the challenges and the relationships
appealed to me on a different level. I could be
transported to Middle Earth when the world went pearshaped and that was good for me.
2001 marked a huge year with the release of the live
action film version of The Fellowship of the Ring. I went
with a large group of friends and disappeared into
Middle Earth for a few hours. Despite some of the
alterations I found the film to be magical. One of my
friends took me right back in to watch it again because
we were both so enthralled and impressed. When The
Two Towers and Return of the King were released, I was