Wednesday, May 27, 2009

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

Book Genre: Fantasy/fiction

Publishing Info: Houghton Mifflin Company (289 pages)

Awards: None

Summary: This book is a prelude to the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. It introduces the readers to a wide cast of characters and fictional races that include Hobbits, Elves, dwarfs, and others. They all live in Middle Earth and go on an adventure with many turns and twists. The purpose of their journey is to take back a great treasure from a dragon named Smaug who had previously stolen it from the Hobbit's ancestors.

Personal Rating: ****Great! I like adventure books. Even though it's a fairly long story, it keeps you interested throughout with suspense and wondering what is going to happen next.

Reading Level: 6.6
Interest Level: 5-6

Possible uses in reading and writing across the curriculum:
This would be a great book to include in a genre study unit on fantasy books. Not every student will like it, but given as a choice for a book club, it would be a good teaching tool. Many writing ideas come to mind within the context of this book. Students could create their own fantasy stories, write alternate endings of this book, character analysis, etc... Because the characters travel through many lands, you could integrate math and geography by designing maps of Middle Earth.

Potential Problems or difficulties: Readers need to have good decoding skills in order to read this book. The author uses many nonsense words for names of characters and settings.

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