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Child of the 7th Age has expressed my feeling toward The Hobbit exactly. I first read it (actually, had it read to me) when I was about five or six; I instantly loved it and my opinion of it has never really changed. It's true that I like The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion more - but I have never shared the "well, it's only a children's book" attitude of some other fans. What is a children's book, anyway? In my view, The Hobbit is perfectly well suited for readers of any age and is a good deal better than most fiction aimed at adults. Nor do I see it as being at odds with Middle-earth as depicted elsewhere. I think that a large part of the difference that some perceive is in fact not at all related to the story itself but rather to the narrative tone, which is undeniably different from that in LotR.
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