I’m not sure I’ll ever find a story as enrapturing to me as The Hobbit (+ LotR), though I’m sure nostalgia plays a heavy role in that. Some of my fondest childhood memories center around this book: my dad reading it to me, looking at the illustrations in a picture book copy that my mom has, spending recesses in elementary school talking with my childhood friends about the world of Middle-Earth, fantasizing what parts we would play if we were on that same adventure, and exchanging riddles back and forth.

I think it’s safe to say that Tolkien’s world, in part, helped save my life purely by giving me a world outside my own to escape into. Where real world strife was/is near constant, Middle-Earth was always there for me to escape into and I hope it always will be.

To the first in the book series that ignited my love of reading as a child and reignited my love for fantasy as an adult, thank you dearly. Elements of this story will, undoubtedly, remain etched on my soul until the very end of my time and I could not be more grateful. To Bilbo, thank you for teaching me that one can simultaneously be terrified and still be brave and for instilling in me the importance of proper meals. Your influence will linger, I hope, for many years to come in both bravery and breakfasts.