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					Originally Posted by  Mithalwen
					 
				 
				I was nine and I had to go and buy the book with my pocket money to find out how it ended as I missed the last episode. This inspired Father Christmas to get me The Lord of the Rings that year but although I was a keen reader with a high reading age I didn’t have the mental stamina to hold the multiple threads and ground 
 
To a halt at the beginning of Return of the King. Also too dim to realise that there was a clue in the title that there might be a happy ending despite the horror of Cirith Ungol. About a year later I was off school for a few weeks with one of the childhood illnesses and tried again and was hooked so I am very impressed by those who read it in extreme youth. 
			
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 I'm impressed by you reading 
The Lord of the Rings at the age of nine!
As mentioned before, I came to it and 
The Hobbit late. While I enjoyed the 
Jackanory adaptation of 
The Hobbit, I did not read the book for almost another couple of years, until I was 12, when my family moved house in the summer; and during the move I came across a copy of the book. When I finished reading it, I was told by my mother about 
The Lord of the Rings, and was given a copy that was also also in the house. While I was 12 going on 13, it was a hard slog; and, like you, it was only when I came to 
Return of the King that all began to fall into place, and the story began to make sense.