I love that as, I've probably stated before, I as a young girl hated reading books that treated me like I was an imbecile with the vocabulary of your average orang-utan. I hated it as much as being talked down to by "adults" and not taken seriously. Aimed at children, but definitely worth reading at any age, Roverandom is the tale of a little dog, Rover, who gets turned into a toy after meddling in the affair of a wizard, Artaxerxes. He goes on an adventure, whisked away from his owner and yellow ball. As a toy he is bought by a woman who gives him to her little boys. Rover has an adventure to the moon and the depths of the sea, hoping to finally be reunited with the little boys that he misses so. Tolkien’s most popular works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are set in Middle-earth, an imagined world with strangely familiar settings inhabited by ancient and extraordinary peoples. Through this secondary world Tolkien writes perceptively of universal human concerns – love and loss, courage and betrayal, humility and pride – giving his books a wide and enduring appeal. In 1925, Tolkien’s son Michael, then nearly five years old, lost his miniature toy dog on the beach. Tolkien wrote Roverandom to console his son. It tells the story of a dog named Rover, who annoys a wizard and is turned into a toy. The toy Rover is then lost on the beach by a young boy, and later found by a sand-sorcerer, who animates the toy. Roverandom tells of the random adventures of this toy dog Rover, on the far side of the Moon and under the sea. Roverandom is a toy dog who, enchanted by a sand sorcerer, gets to explore the world and encounter strange and fabulous creatures.

In the tale as fully developed, Rover is transformed into a small toy by an angry wizard, Artaxerxes, and given to ‘little boy Two’ (after second son Michael Tolkien). Like other storybook toys, Rover finds that he can move and speak only at night, or when no one is watching.

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The whole feel and heart and theme of the book. It is so utterly sweet and golden and wonderful and heartwarming!! It was such a comforting read, especially when I wasn't feeling well. Despite being a short children's tale, Roverandom has many interesting things to offer. The mythology that runs through the novel is rich and refreshing and the themes discussed are actually worth while. I was especially fond of Rover's adventures on the moon and his discovery about how good dreams and nightmares are made and how children are dealing with it.

Great White Dragon, a resident of the moon who chases Roverandom and the moon-Rover. Following his encounter with the Man-in-the-Moon he is renamed the "Mottled Monster". Roverandom is a very odd tale. Written in 1927, got rejected by the Publisher and Tolkien never fully revised it so it was published posthumously in 1998. The reason why this story exists is a very cute tale, one of Tolkien's sons had a dog toy that he treasured but he lost on a beach. The introduction states “Tolkien was inspired to invent an ‘explanation’ for the occurrence” (Introduction). The premise is that dogs adventure, who gets angry at a wizard and that wizard turns the dog into a toy. The events that occur are very bizarre, extremely fairytale-like and you can immediately tell, Tolkien had a lot of fun writing it. Of course, this doesn’t have the nuance nor depth of The Hobbit but it's a fun story to read though less polished than the hobbit (though written similar style). Rover isn’t the most interesting POV but it is cute, the side characters like Artaxerxes, the 2,000-year-old wizard from Persia makes this story really fun to read. We go to a lot of locations, one example you go to the Moon, and you see a white dragon. In terms of prose, it's great what you expect from the professor. It’s nothing outbreaking but overall, a good children’s novel. In 2005, the story was released as an audiobook, narrated by Derek Jacobi and published by HarperCollins. Smith of Wootton Major journeys to the Land of Faery thanks to the magical ingredients of the Great Cake of the Feast of Good Children. Although Roverandom may turn hardcore Hobbit-lore fans off with its deviation from Tolkien's meatier works, the yarn does deserve credit for its successes. The simplicity of the plot line prevents alienation from young readers, while more mature readers will notice that Tolkien's narrative is full of quiet humor and droll British colloquialisms. Even the most casual reader will notice the ease with which Rover's quest moves from earth to sky to sea and home again.

It's interesting to compare Tolkien's earlier fiction with his magnum opus, The Lord of the Rings. The wizard Artaxerxes, who 'walked into the story, came wandering up the garden-path in a ragged old coat, with an old pipe in his mouth', really reminded me of Gandalf. It was submitted for publication in 1937 after the success of The Hobbit, but was not published for over sixty years, finally being released in 1998. Roverandom was included in the collection Tales from the Perilous Realm from its 2009 reprinting onwards. Truly did Tolkien say that The Silmarillion had influenced nearly all of his fiction, and Roverandom is the more interesting for its brush with the earlier tales of Arda and Middle-earth. But at several points it also anticipated a later and more famous book, The Hobbit, begun around 1930 in the wake of Roverandom’s popularity with the Tolkien boys. In the process Roverandom meets two other Rovers, the moon-dog and a sea-dog, each of whom he barks insults at upon meeting, “from which,” says Tolkien, “you can see that they took rather a fancy to one another at first sight.” The author knows his canine behavior, all right. Roverandom also meets not one but three idiosyncratic wizards, alarming in their abrupt transitions between geniality and crankiness. And if that doesn’t remind you of Gandalf, perhaps this observation of Roverandom’s will: “It is very kind of all these wizards to trouble themselves about me, I am sure, though it is rather upsetting. You never know what will happen next, when once you get mixed up with wizards and their friends.” Certain hobbits would emphatically agree. Meanwhile, Smaug flies to the Lake Town of Esgaroth and burns and destroys the city in revenge. Bard, captain of the archers, shoots Smaug in his weak spot and kills him. The Lake People celebrate this act but grow angry at Thorin and his company for sending Smaug upon them, and they want the now-unguarded treasure as recompense for the destruction. The Lake People send to the Elvenking for help. The Esgaroth and the Wood-elves march up into the mountain to face the company of dwarves.

All in all, Roverandom is a wonderful, humorous, sweet, and gently magical tale that will appeal to Tolkien fans and non-Tolkien fans alike. It makes a wonderful read-aloud for parents to read to children of any age, even very young children, and it can be enjoyed by anyone, from young children to adults. Tolkien seems to have written out the tale of Roverandom at Christmas 1927, adding an episode concerning the Man-in-the-Moon and a lunar eclipse said to be caused by dragons. (The latter is referred to also in the ‘Father Christmas’ letter for that year, undoubtedly based on an actual eclipse of 8 December.) By now, all of the basic elements of Roverandom were probably in place. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien: writer, artist, scholar, linguist. Known to millions around the world as the author of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien spent most of his life teaching at the University of Oxford where he was a distinguished academic in the fields of Old and Middle English and Old Norse. His creativity, confined to his spare time, found its outlet in fantasy works, stories for children, poetry, illustration and invented languages and alphabets.This edition reproduces the text and illustrations of the First Edition of 1949 in facsimile, including the colour plates. It also includes: an introduction and notes by the editors, the first written (manuscript) version of the story, drafts for an unfinished sequel, and a map of 'The Little Kingdom' by Pauline Baynes. Psamathos Psamathides, the head of the Psamathists, a fat and ugly sand-sorcerer who transforms Rover from a toy into a small "fairy-dog". Leaf by Niggle recounts the strange adventures of the painter Niggle who sets out to paint the perfect tree; Like the vastly underrated "Farmer Giles of Ham,""Roverandom" is a charming little bit of whimsy. No deep themes, no epic clashes, not even really a villain. The writing is charming and magical, with phrases like "There was a cold wind blowing off the North Star" sprinkled through it. It almost gives the feeling of being in another world. Best of all, in the middle of the book are tolkien's own illustrations, cute little drawings and ethereal paintings.