Tolkien wrote The Hobbit as a story for children. However, I've never seen a specific age mentioned. Did Tolkien intend the story for young children or for teens?
What reading level should a child be at to understand and enjoy The Hobbit?
Answer
When Tolkien began writing The Hobbit in 1930, his children were 13, 10, 6, and 1, and he finished it two years later, so if the story that he wrote it for his own children is true, then presumably he hoped his two oldest children would enjoy it.
According to wikipedia:
In a 1955 letter to W. H. Auden, Tolkien recollects that he began work on The Hobbit one day early in the 1930s, when he was marking School Certificate papers. He found a blank page. Suddenly inspired, he wrote the words, "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." By late 1932 he had finished the story and then lent the manuscript to several friends, including C. S. Lewis and a student of Tolkien's named Elaine Griffiths. In 1936, when Griffiths was visited in Oxford by Susan Dagnall, a staff member of the publisher George Allen & Unwin, she is reported to have either lent Dagnall the book or suggested she borrow it from Tolkien. In any event, Miss Dagnall was impressed by it, and showed the book to Stanley Unwin, who then asked his 10-year-old son Rayner to review it. Rayner's favourable comments settled Allen & Unwin's decision to publish Tolkien's book.
So a contemporary 10 year old was able to enjoy the book. If you're trying to ascertain whether your child would be able to enjoy it, you should probably consider whether he knows a high enough percentage of the vocabulary to really understand it. The story of The Hobbit is not especially complicated - it's the language that is difficult. As I recall, studies have shown that as long as children know approximately 85% of the vocabulary in a book, they will have no difficulty filling in the rest from context. (Though I have long since sold back that psych textbook, and I can't seem to find a statistic online.)
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