Reading log... double posting tonight, sorry. ;P
Just one book - I've been moving house and playing on LibraryThing. :-) Also I need to reorganize my icons pretty soon.
Roverandom by JRR Tolkien
Summary: A little dog gets turned into a toy, lost on the beach, flown up to the moon, goes under the sea, and so forth.
Reaction: The best children's stories, I always say, are the ones that were first told aloud to children. Rudyard Kipling's are like that (do not get me started, we'll be here all night *g*); so is The Hobbit, in places, and the first chapter or so of LOTR. And so, to perfection, is this odd little tale of a toy dog - which was originally told to the young Michael Tolkien after he lost his favorite toy dog on a pebbly beach. :-)
Tolkien was first and always a poet, and it shows. "Roverandom" is a word-lover's romp on the level of "How the Whale Got His Throat" (a wonderful story that I am totally going to memorize someday). It's also quite obviously a history-and-legend geek's romp, with the Man in the Moon's dog and the Viking's sea-dog (*groan*) and the Midgard Serpent and all - and a quick glimpse of the Uttermost West, reminding us that this is after all Tolkien's romp. ;D
Short version: I loved it. Although I seem to have absorbed some Tolkien-voice... *g*
Roverandom by JRR Tolkien
Summary: A little dog gets turned into a toy, lost on the beach, flown up to the moon, goes under the sea, and so forth.
Reaction: The best children's stories, I always say, are the ones that were first told aloud to children. Rudyard Kipling's are like that (do not get me started, we'll be here all night *g*); so is The Hobbit, in places, and the first chapter or so of LOTR. And so, to perfection, is this odd little tale of a toy dog - which was originally told to the young Michael Tolkien after he lost his favorite toy dog on a pebbly beach. :-)
Tolkien was first and always a poet, and it shows. "Roverandom" is a word-lover's romp on the level of "How the Whale Got His Throat" (a wonderful story that I am totally going to memorize someday). It's also quite obviously a history-and-legend geek's romp, with the Man in the Moon's dog and the Viking's sea-dog (*groan*) and the Midgard Serpent and all - and a quick glimpse of the Uttermost West, reminding us that this is after all Tolkien's romp. ;D
Short version: I loved it. Although I seem to have absorbed some Tolkien-voice... *g*