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Posted On: September 22nd 2026, 12:34 am
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Happy #middleearthmonday dear hobbitses! For today's #alongexpectedhobbitday prompt, "Food & cheer & song," we are sharing how we "met" The Hobbit.
On this day, 89 years ago, The Hobbit was first published!
I was introduced at 11 years old, when my new uncle showed me The Fellowship of the Ring. As I fell in love with Middle-earth, he suggested I read The Hobbit...
And the rest is history.
Bilbo, Gandalf, Beorn, Thorin, and all of our dwarf friends kept me company up in my room, my secret respite from the horrors of the real world.
But what Tolkien gave me in those years was more than an escape.
All the while I read The Hobbit (and then The Lord of the Rings), I was learning about courage, mercy, friendship, the importance of home, the value of ordinary things, and that the smallest unthought-of folk could be the ones to change the world.
Those lessons took root in my heart, and I have carried them with me every since. The innermost parts of my aching preteen heart, despite so much difficulty, learned that a cozy and safe home matters, but sometimes adventures call that my stretch us to the very ends of our being.
Now, so many years later, through my various hills and valleys, I see how those lessons carried me through. How my core values developed, all because "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit."
I no longer have my original copy of The Hobbit, but I do have this vintage mass-market edition from a set that I absolutely adore!
And now, one of my greatest joys is sharing this world with my own children.
This time, I don't bring them to Middle-earth because I need an escape (and hallelujah that thought is even foreign to them 😭)
I bring them along with me into the portal that is The Pages of a Book, because I know the gift of a story that can shape a childhood, and because some books really become part of us forever... The only childhood home we might return to.
Middle-earth was once a place I ran to for refuge.
Now, I build a home inspired by it, my hope that it may serve as a refuge to my my family and any who cross the threshold.
Thank you dear Tolkien, happy birthday to the tale that welcomed so many of us in to y
On this day, 89 years ago, The Hobbit was first published!
I was introduced at 11 years old, when my new uncle showed me The Fellowship of the Ring. As I fell in love with Middle-earth, he suggested I read The Hobbit...
And the rest is history.
Bilbo, Gandalf, Beorn, Thorin, and all of our dwarf friends kept me company up in my room, my secret respite from the horrors of the real world.
But what Tolkien gave me in those years was more than an escape.
All the while I read The Hobbit (and then The Lord of the Rings), I was learning about courage, mercy, friendship, the importance of home, the value of ordinary things, and that the smallest unthought-of folk could be the ones to change the world.
Those lessons took root in my heart, and I have carried them with me every since. The innermost parts of my aching preteen heart, despite so much difficulty, learned that a cozy and safe home matters, but sometimes adventures call that my stretch us to the very ends of our being.
Now, so many years later, through my various hills and valleys, I see how those lessons carried me through. How my core values developed, all because "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit."
I no longer have my original copy of The Hobbit, but I do have this vintage mass-market edition from a set that I absolutely adore!
And now, one of my greatest joys is sharing this world with my own children.
This time, I don't bring them to Middle-earth because I need an escape (and hallelujah that thought is even foreign to them 😭)
I bring them along with me into the portal that is The Pages of a Book, because I know the gift of a story that can shape a childhood, and because some books really become part of us forever... The only childhood home we might return to.
Middle-earth was once a place I ran to for refuge.
Now, I build a home inspired by it, my hope that it may serve as a refuge to my my family and any who cross the threshold.
Thank you dear Tolkien, happy birthday to the tale that welcomed so many of us in to y
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