Book 5, 'The Hobbit ' J.R.R. Tolkien.

I was very pleased to see that fantasy books were the subject of this week. Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia and of course The Hobbit are books I believe every child/ adolescent should have read! I read The Hobbit when I was much younger so my first impression of the book was different from when I was younger. I thought that since I have grown up I cannot have such an imaginary mind anymore but I still got it luckily.
The storyline is basically the same in most fantasy books, you have: the call, the journey, the obstacles, final ordeal and the goal. What intrigued me the most was what became clear during class discussion. Stephanie told us to type in on google: 'Tolkien' and World War 1', the results were spectacular because after discussing this with the group that has read 'The Hobbit' it became clear Tolkien used a lot of his experiences from WW1 in 'The Hobbit'. I did not notice did when I finished the book so this was a big revelation to me. One example is that Tolkien has experienced massive destroy of humans but also nature. The last one can also be related back to 'The Hobbit', when Bilbo makes his way back to the shire at the end of the book the whole shire is destroyed and is not the same for Bilbo. Tolkien has experienced the same when he came back from war , everything was destroyed and unfamiliar to him.  
There are a lot of obstacles in 'The Hobbit' such as: Goblins, Spiders, Smaug , Elves and last but definitely not least Orks. What I, again during class discussion , found out was that Orks most likely represent the Germans during the first WW.  It is shocking to me that such a harmless book to children can have much more to it than just what the surface shows us.

According to the Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners fantasy can be defined as 'A story that shows lots of imagination and is very different from real life'.
This book can be defined as a fantasy book for sure because of the differences from real life that are shown in the story. For instance Elves and dwarves but the special element in this book is that you can relate to the Elves and Dwarves. They are a close community that stick up for each other and I believe we humans do exactly the same.
Therefore I believe this book is suitable for kids who are about 8 to 11 years old. They have a great imagination and can handle the exciting parts better than kids who are younger.
Of course Bilbo's name must be said once in a blog about 'The Hobbit'!
What I found special was that Bilbo was the only Hobbit who went along on this journey. Of course the book is called 'The Hobbit' but I think he entered the journey because he felt for the dwarves who did not have a home anymore while Bilbo was save in his home in the Shire. Bravery is a quality Bilbo develops throughout the book and it is moving to discover that while reading 'The Hobbit'.

I experienced reading 'The Hobbit' totally different than 10 years ago, because of class discussions and revelations I discovered about Tolkien and his history, but it was still worth reading every page.

 J.R.R Tolkien

Additional sources besides class discussions, google: 'The Hobbit' + 'Tolkien' ( 9-01-2014) and notes made during the PowerPoint:
Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners , 2002, ISBN: 0-333-99093-5