What reading level is Lord of the Rings? (2024)

What grade reading level is Lord of the Rings?

Anytime between the age of nine and thirteen is a great time to begin the Middle Earth saga. Who knows, Lord of the Rings may convince one of your children to start attending creative writing schools later in life.

The lore of the series runs very deep, and there are pages-long stretches where nothing very exciting happens, so it can feel like trudge at times. If you really want to read it, read one book at a time and take a break with something else, rather than reading the entire novel in one shot.

Age 12: Expect more action and violence in Tolkien's books and the adaptations. Age 13 and up: If your teens have read the books and watched the movies, they can probably handle anything in these games.

Fun Fantasy Saga

Slightly violent but enjoyable nonetheless. Recommended for 11-12+ if your child can handle a bit of violence and gore.

I highly suggest people 12+ to read this book. It is a very slow book to get through and I'm sure a lot of the chapters could bore young ones.

As far as mature content goes, you don't have to worry about offering the books to young kids of 8 or 9 years old. There's no sex or sexual violence in the books, and no bad language.

Parents need to know that, of J.R.R. Tolkien's many excellent books, The Hobbit is the better choice for tweens. It makes a great read-aloud for kids 8 and up and read-alone for 10 or 11 and up. Kids younger than 8 will probably have a tough time with both the vocabulary and some of the violence.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy is absolutely worth reading, even though they're very long and a bit monotonous. There's so much to the story that doesn't make it into movies, side stories and fascinating tidbits that you miss if you don't take the plunge.

How long does it take to read all The Lord of the Rings?

The average reader will spend 37 hours and 36 minutes reading this book at 250 WPM (words per minute).

Hobbit is a childrens book and relatively short. Easy read. LOTR more challenging as it is long plus some of the names are made up, so lots of people might find them strange dyslexic or not. You could ofc watch the films or listen to the audiobooks.

Parents need to know that The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is a classic fantasy that's full of violence and danger, including death. Horrific medieval-esque creatures kill, mostly with arrows and swords. More often, though, they get impaled, decapitated, dismemebered themselves.

The Harry Potter book series is Middle Grade, not YA (Young Adult). This means it is generally written for children ages 8-12 and grade levels 3-7.

Wonderful family movie for kids 11 and up.

There was no such thing as MG or YA when Tolkien wrote The Hobbit, and it's hard to argue it's a Middle Grade novel when the main character is 50 years old in the book (if I remember correctly).

To begin, Lexile score ranges vary depending on grade level. A proficient first grader would score between 200L and 300L, while an adequate reader in the 12th grade would earn a score in the range of 1060L and 1320L.

When reader's score and that of the reading material are the same, the student is expected to read with 75% comprehension – difficult enough to be challenging without undue frustration and to encourage reading progress. Scores range from 200 to 1700. Lexile measures are a measure of text difficulty.

Reader's Reviews

Although the recommended reading age is 13+, I first "read" them at the age of ten (I was very good at skipping over long descriptions and poetry).

Is there a kids version of The Lord of the Rings?

The Two Animated The Lord of the Rings Movies

The entire Lord of the Rings trilogy is covered between these two animated films. Unlike the Peter Jackson films, these are family-friendly and appropriate for younger audiences. I would recommend them for kids ages 4 or 5 and older.

7th & 8th Grade: 60-80.

The book is rated by Scholastic as grade 5.3 and for ages 11-13. Parents' concerns about The Hunger Games center around violence. The book has a lot of it, and it is graphic at times. Much of the plot focuses on "the games" in which children kill children.

It is this depth to Tolkien's creation that creates a seductively immersive world in which readers can visit. The maps in the books help to make that world a little more “tangible”, as do the usage of Elvish languages and frequent references to other tales.

Though Hollywood seems to be filled with sequels these days, it is still hard to pull off a really great trilogy of movies. There are several examples of such successful trilogies, but Lord of the Rings certainly stands out as one of the greatest of all time and perhaps the best trilogy of the 21st century.

The Lord of the Rings is considered adult fantasy. The prelude, The Hobbit, was written for children, but it's wonderful to read. If your kids can read it, you don't have to worry about content.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is the longest of the three books in the trilogy. The original first edition of the book contained 423 pages. The Return of the King is the second-longest with 419 pages, and The Two Towers is the shortest with only 352 pages in the first edition.

The average reader will spend 5 hours and 20 minutes reading this book at 250 WPM (words per minute).

In general, an average reading speed of a reader is about 200 to 300 words per minute (wpm). Good readers can read at about 300 to 400 wpm.

We recommend starting your adventure with The Hobbit, Tolkien's first published foray into Middle-earth, before moving onto The Lord of the Rings proper. The Hobbit is a rollicking good read, and a superb place to get your feet wet.

What order should you read Tolkien?

Tolkien, when he wrote The Hobbit, created a legendarium so massive that it would take hundreds of books to really deconstruct. Hundreds of books have been written about Lord of the Rings and its deeper, more philosophical meaning, or in the context of the First and Second World Wars. But, The Hobbit is a better book.

Reader's Reviews

Although the recommended reading age is 13+, I first "read" them at the age of ten (I was very good at skipping over long descriptions and poetry).

It makes a great read-aloud for kids 8 and up and read-alone for 10 or 11 and up. Kids younger than 8 will probably have a tough time with both the vocabulary and some of the violence.