Hobbit-ual

This thing all things devours:
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays king, ruins town,
And beats high mountain down.


What say you, gentle reader? Have you an answer?


Of course, the answer is "Time."  Time is something that seems to fly at an alarmingly fast rate in our chaotic lives.  I remember only a short few years ago, my oldest baby sitting on his diapered-butt, using his baby board books to "decorate" my living room in San Clemente.  We had a morning ritual that as I finished getting ready for the day, he would sit and read his huge stack of board books and toss them over his sweet little shoulder when he was ready for the next one.  The result left a huge mess that we would happily clean before leaving for our day.  


These days he is as voracious a reader as I have ever known, at his age.  He has read far too many books for me to keep count.   I would guess that half of the books that I buy end up in his hands.  As an example to his reading prowess, I'll share that he read The Hunger Games when he was in 5th grade long before it was the popular series that it became.  He also plowed through the others as soon as they were released.  (Sidenote:  He keeps pushing me to read the series, but I think that I might be a bit of a novel snob.  Just knowing that my 5th grader (at the time) read and enjoyed this series turns me off a tad. I have one word for you:  Twilight  *shudder*) 


Recently, he was out of books, so we went to my bookcase to see what we could find that he might enjoy.  Lord of the Flies was met with tepid interest.  A Tale of Two Cities?  Catcher in the Rye?  Count of Monte Cristo?  *yawn*  Then, I spotted it.... Tolkien.   Ahhh, yes...it was the time.   


As I pulled it from the shelf, with an admitted twinkle in my eye, my heart sank a bit.  
This....

...had become this...

Fear not, the Amazon gods always smile in our favor and in two days we had...

Guess who is reading it now?   Jake!  
Guess who is really liking it?   Jake!
Guess who is probably going to have to quit being prideful and read The Hunger Games series?  Not me! :)