How old were you the first time you read LOTR?

[Alda]

I remember doing a book report on the Hobbit in fifth or sixth grade. We had to use a shoe box and create a scene from our book inside. You would place the lid of the shoebox back on and peer inside through a peephole, the inside of the box being illuminated by one of those small white christmas lights. I don't think I recieved a very good grade, I wasn't (and am still not) very artistically inclined. But I was proud of my paper cutout of Bilbo stabbing a paper spider.

I read, and reread, and reread, the trilogy and the Silmarillion while in junior high. I discovered Unfinished Tales while I was in highschool. I remember being thrilled and kind of mad at the same time. I found the book at the library and saw that it had been published three years earlier. They had just gotten around to getting a copy. But seeing as I didn't even know it existed imagine my suprise.

I suppose it would be too much to hope that there might be another unfinished manuscript that Christopher Tolkien is busy editing at this very moment? A dusty sheaf of hand written notes recently found locked in a desk in the basement at Oxford? I dare not hope to believe in such treasures beyond the cellar door.