Has anyone read LOTR to their kids?

triumphguy · #1 May 1, '12, 5:02 pm

I'm into the third volume. It's taken a few months. I read 10 pages a night (unless other family stuff takes precedence). Aragorn has just met the oathbreakers at the Stone of Erech.

I do regional British voices for many of the characters (I'm from Manchester originally. Denethor has a brummy voice, Gollum is a scouser (ie., from Liverpool)

, Boromir is from Yorkshire (Sean Bean had a great voice for Boromir), Legolas and other elves are Welsh and Gimili is Scottish. The hobbits are read in my normal voice.

I'm enjoying reading to the kids - sometimes it's tough for them (the dead marshes are boring for them) - but they are not yet "Bored of the Rings!"

**Tantum ergo** · #2 May 1, '12, 5:26 pm

Oh yes. I did so to my children when they were young, 20 years ago and more. I did the same thing, different voices. In fact, when the movie came out and Gollum came on screen and spoke, he sounded, no joke, exactly the way I had made him sound in the 1990s. My kids were in shock! Their mom had channeled Gollum, LOL.

So I did it before the movies, but I had studied in London before so I was able to do a kind of Yorkshire accent for Sam, and an "Etonian" for Frodo and a somewhat 'older' Bilbo, and a kind of Sean Connery hint of Scots/Celt for Gandalf, etc.

It is a wonderful series to read aloud to children. Even though mine were a little less 'MTV'd' or 'sound byte' the way many modern children are, they still were not accustomed to long lyric passages and the rhythms of the magnificent rhymes of the work. . .it was great fun to 'build up' the atmosphere of so many different 'places' strictly with one's voice.

triumphguy · #3 May 1, '12, 6:20 pm

Great, thanks for sharing that.

I have to make the poetry somewhat energetic for them to put up with it. Though I heard Tolkein reading the Ents' battle song on Youtube and he read with a very fast cadence.

BTW: I studied in London too: King's College.

irishOntarian · #4 May 22, '12, 3:28 pm

My dad didn't like the movies but he read us all three books each time one of the movies came out.

triumphguy · #5 Jun 13, '12, 7:13 pm

I just finished the last book.

I nearly had a lump in my throat - I was quite emotional and the kids were quite sad when I finished.

I'm really glad I read the whole thing to them. It feels like an accomplishment for all of us.