I'm not sure if I count as an early teen fan, as I'm 15, so halfway....ah well, close enough! I was 12 when I first read the books (wow, how long ago that seems!) as it was in the Summer/Autumn of 2001. I had no idea the films would be coming out at the time, but they came out several months after I had finished the books, and a few months after that, at the enduring peak of my 'obsession', I found the Downs. I happened upon the trilogy when in an airport in...Canada?...and was looking for something to occupy my mind on the long flight back to Manchester - over 1 and a half thousand pages of Middle Earth did the trick!

I'm 15, too, and I first saw FotR in the theaters when I was 13. I have to admit that at first, I was a squealing fangirl-type. (I know your shame, Lhunardawen!) But then I saw it a couple more times, and I found the books in my basement. I began reading the Fellowship, and I became more educated in Tolkien's works. By the time the Extended Edition rolled around, I was hooked. In a good way.

P.S. Oh, happy day! I found The Hobbit in my basement this afternoon! :)

Wow, it should be made into a fanfic: 'Mad Baggins and the Everlasting Basement' ;)

Mama always said the basement was like a box of chocolates; you never know what you're gonna get.

I am 14 years old, and at a young age, my older brother (who has been a Lord of the Rings fan for a long time) exposed me to The Lord of the Rings by telling me and my brother about the story at the time he was reading it. Many years later, he excitedly told us that a movie was going to be made. At first, I said that I'd never see it because it would be too scary and violent :rolleyes:, but he managed to change my mind and see it... and after the movie ended, I immediately became hooked and have been a fan ever since. I read the trilogy after and absolutely loved those as well.

Following Sharku and Estelyn, I too am intruding here, though being not a teenager at all :). My apologies, ladies and gentlemen, but I would like to comment upon the following:

Well, I believe we can (unless all you do on the books is giggle in one case, and whatever it is hippos do in another ;))

Even more so, that I personally find Trippo The Hippo and Snickerdoodle very funny, original and inspiring nicknames. Besides, there is no rule for nicks to be Tolkien related at all

cheers

Or to have any intelligence behind them (example: mine, after screwing up on the email address of my original Estel nick :p)...

Yes, I too am an early teen. Here is my life story (or at least all of the important parts! ;) ):

I discovered Tolkein when I was 5 and my dad read me the Hobbit, a chapter a night. For the longest time, I thought that Gollum lived between the little space between my bed and the wall. Anyways, when I was 7, my uncle (and huge LOTR fan) gave me FOTR. Inside the cover he wrote:
A somewhat fitting beginning methinks! :) Anyways, after I finished all of the books. I didn't read them for a long while, but they always stayed at the top of my "Fave Books" list (mostly because no one else I knew had read them! :rolleyes: ) When the movies came out, I was ecstatic because there was some shred of a memory left that told me these were something special. That was when I was 10 (I think???). Well, that's about it. I, however, am proud to say that I'm not a Leggie-bopper! *cheers*

15 seems to be the magic number around here- I'm 15 too. I read the Hobbit when I was about 13 (in 7th grade) and last year between late November and early January I read all of FoTR, TTT, RoTK. I am a complete Middle Earth fan, and often day dream about it. Yes, I still think Orlando Bloom as Legolas is pretty darn hot, but I like all the characters out of the book a lot better. (The movie Frodo is a wimp, I think. Even if he's knida cute in a weird hobbitish way ;) ) Didn't see the movies till after I had read all the books, and joined the site in between reading the books and seeing the movies. I guess that's all the important stuff. Bye for now!

Fifteen is almost the magic number...I'm almost 15. I read Lord of the Rings first when I was eleven or twelve... My dad and I were looking through the bookstore for good books, and he said that Tolkien might be fun to read, then said I might be too young for the Lord of the Rings. Of course, I took up that comment and bought the trilogy and read it all just as the first movie came out. The Sil. was soon to follow...

But, really, it all begins when the substitute teacher is left with only a VCR and an old copy of the movie version of "The Hobbit". :D

-Aylwen

I was a teenager once...
 

...and looking back, to age 12 when I read LOTR, I remember that I thought Faramir was ... ....ooo, wonderful. Then (on a second reading) Aragorn was just wow. After that, Eomer ruled (love that battle-cry at Pelennor.) Finally, because he loved his city and gave his life for Merry and Pippin, I settled on Boromir, and that lasted for several readings and several years (*cough*). And I won't tell you what I had embroidered on MY bluejeans in Tengwar.

Thirty some-odd years later, I make my forays into the Books forum, and so far no one has thrown me out. So I can assure you all that there is hope both for the Legolas-addict and the Elijah-addict.

And who says the movie hobbits can't be considered cute by the sophisticated?

Well said, indeed!

At age 20, I fell in love with Aragorn. I pictured him as rugged, handsome and oh so heroic. Now at age 41, I picture him the same, but with Viggo's rugged and handsome face. My 20 year infatuation continues.

how the hobbit discovered the hobbit
 

I turned 18 in February and have been a Tolkien fan and admirer since I was about 15. However, my first taste of Tolkien came at a very young age, probably 4 or 5, when my step-dad took out his animated version of the Hobbit. (By animated I mean a sort of comic book style, not a movie...is graphic novel the right term here?) Anyways, I was really enjoying it until Bilbo found himself in Gollum's cave. Gollum scared the bejesus out of me and we never finished the book. As I grew up, my step-dad was always telling me to read Lord of the Rings. Being a playfully saucy young thing, I didn't read it simply because he wanted me to. But for some reason or another, I eventually picked it up when I was around 15. From the first sentence I was hooked. Never had a book affected me the way that Lord of the Rings did. Here it is now, three years later and my step-dad has ordered me the special hardback editions of the Lord of the Rings from the Folio Society as my graduation present. They are pricey but they are the most beautiful things I have ever seen. I plan to pass them on to the children I may have one day as a family heirloom. I hope I can pass on the same love for reading especially reading LOTR that I have now. I also am planning on becoming an English teacher one day. It is a dream of mine to teach Tolkien in school. So many of my peers won't open a book unless it counts for a grade and even then it can be a struggle to get them to read. I hope to convey the joy of reading when I am older. But for now I will continue on my other dream of some day becoming a Tolkien scholar, finishing high school and moving on to university. Lata gatas :p

It seems to me that most of you around here have encountered the book before the movies came out...I have seen the books around my campus when I was a highschool freshman (almost 3 years ago) and I wondered how come I don't seem to have heard about them. Then a friend of mine told me that they were going to be made into movies. I listened to my classmates debate about Legolas and Aragorn and can't actually relate to them. When I finally watched the movie, I agreed that Legolas is indeed a cutie and sort of became a fangirl. The next year, when I have finally read all the books, I decided that Aragorn was better. Another round of reading led me to the conclusion that Faramir is better than both of them.

Ah...the drama of my life with LotR. :D :rolleyes:

I'm 16, so I really wouldn't count as a young teen since I'm in high school now, but when I first came here I was 14. It was jsut a few months after I saw the first movie. Yes, the movie was what reallyintroduced me to Middle-earth, though I was a fan of The Hobbit as a younger kid. Having read the Silmarillion and owning some of Tolkien's less well-known books (Lost Tales, Shaping of Middle Earth, Unfinished Tales, etc.), I think it's safe to say I've become more of a book fan. My primary interest in Middle-earth, though, lies in the races, geography, and extensive history of the world, which I got from books; but I mostly utilize those interests in roleplaying.