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Several years back, we had a summer reading assignment (I think it was when I was going into seventh grade), and we had the option of choosing any of the three books of the trilogy. Too bad I wasn't into LotR at the time... plus, I think -- just my opinion -- that they're a little heavy-duty for a twelve-year-old's summer assignment.
At my boyfriend's school, they actually have a fantasy lit class... I am so jealous. What I wouldn't give.
Personally, I love Shakespeare; I think he was an incredibly brilliant writer. But he didn't use Old English, as my teachers have banged into my head for the past two years. He used Modern English with some crazy words thrown in. All I can say is... hooray for iambic pentameter!
Dickens is pretty tedious, although I did enjoy A Tale of Two Cities. His stories are good, but his publisher really should have learned that paying a writer by the word is asking to be robbed. Jane Austen... argh.
It would take too long, though, to read the whole trilogy and really understand it. I think it's the kind of thing you need to read at least twice. Surely it could be completed in one school year, but teachers are into multitasking and all that crepe, and they just love jamming an impossible number of assignments into a tiny frame of time. Unless the teacher was really a Tolkien fan, the book would probably lose some of its magic.
And there would, of course, be the idiot kids who snickered at Frodo and Sam...
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