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My Favourite Book

Introduction

As many people know, J.R.R.Tolkien was one of Britain's most famous authors. His head was always swimming with ideas. One of his most famous pieces was, 'The Hobbit,' a prelude to, 'The Lord of the Rings.' It is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure. Bilbo Baggins was not an adventurous lad but he changed, and that is why I like this book.

Tolkien's strongest point was his description. If he wanted to publish his book nowadays, it would be impossible because his descriptions would be too long. Here is an example of his description of the hobbit hole:

'In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit hole and that means comfort.'

That tells us what it is not as much as what it is. That is what I like most about his description. There is a lot more describing of the hobbit-hole, but that would fill my book, so I decided to stick with the first paragraph.

J.R.R. Tolkien's use of language was very interesting. He uses words that we would not usually use in our writing nowadays as the following quote implies:

'The Elvenking said, "Long will I tarry, ere I begin this war for gold. The dwarves cannot pass us, unless we will, or do anything that we cannot mark. Let us hope still for something that will bring reconciliation. Our advantage in numbers will be enough, if in the end it must come to unhappy blows.'

Some people may find 'The Hobbit' hard to read, but others may understand it easily. Onomatopoeia was not used that often: I only found it once. The following quote suggests the level of his use of onomatopoeia: 'Bows twanged and arrows whistled.'

Punctuation was definitely not one of Tolkien's strongest points. For example, he uses semi-colons to make his sentences very long, like when he was describing the hobbits. However, I cannot quote this because it will be too long. On the other hand, Tolkien's use of dashes were good as the quote implies: '"Good old Bilbo-Bilbo-Bilbo-bo-bo-bo."'

As part of Tolkien's narration, he gave a bit of opinion. This quote implies that he knew a little about Gandalf:

'Gandalf! If you have heard only a quarter of what I have heard about him, and I have heard only very little of all there is to hear, you would be prepared for any sort of remarkable tale.'

All in all, the book, 'The Hobbit' was, and still is, remarkably good. We have discussed:

• Use of language (onomatopoeia)

• Punctuation

• Author giving opinion

There is a lot more to, 'The Hobbit.'

GR (aged 9).

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