It's Friday, and another week comes to a rainy end...yep, it's precipitating outside, and the temperature isn't expected to make it out of the 40's here in Northern Virginia. Should be nice tomorrow, but then rain again on Monday and Tuesday. Oh, well...cold rain is yucky, but at least you don't have to shovel it.
It seems I missed something yesterday in the euphoria over the birth of our newest grandchild: yesterday, March 25th, was the seventh annual Tolkien Reading Day.
John Ronald Reuel (JRR) Tolkien was, of course, the author of the classic fantasy trilogy The Lord of the Rings, and the annual Tolkien Reading Day was established to encourage the oral reading of the trilogy, The Hobbit, and other works by Professor Tolkien. March 25th was selected because, in the history of Middle Earth, it was the day on which the Dark Lord Sauron was overthrown and the One Ring destroyed by Frodo the Hobbit.
If you aren't into high fantasy and grand literature, you can stop reading now and come back tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday.
Many people find the style of Professor Tolkien's writing to be difficult, but much of The Lord of the Rings lends itself to reading aloud. If you saw the third film of the trilogy (The Return of the King), you probably were on your feet cheering when the horsemen of Rohan charged Sauron's army at the siege of Gondor, saving the city...it was a marvelous and heroic scene. But the way that Professor Tolkien described it in the book was equally marvelous, with his imagery of the army of Rohan thundering over the enemy like vast waves pounding on a rocky shore. It remains one of my favorite passages of literature, always able to conjure up magnificent mental images of desperate heroism in the face of overwhelming odds.
Reading aloud - whether it's poetry, literature, or Dr Seuss's children's stories - is fun and helps improve your diction, vocabulary, and pronunciation. And children love to be read to. Trust me, I know.
So don't wait for next March 25th to start reading aloud - do it now. I think you'll like it.
Have a good day. Read more. Tomorrow is Cartoon Saturday...be here!
Bilbo
I had a very happy childhood, but I remember feeling deprived when I found out my oldest nephew (2 years my junior) had The Hobbit and the whole Trilogy read to him. Grace was such a voracious reader we never got around to reading these books to her--she quit on Harry Potter 3 being read outloud when she became impatient (because she could read faster alone).
ReplyDeleteI find typing aloud is hard enough.
ReplyDeleteWv: comper - A small computer.
Congrats on the new grand baby! One day I'll get around to reading the trilogy...one day.
ReplyDelete