A review by gittav
Roverandom by Wayne G. Hammond, J.R.R. Tolkien, Christina Scull

4.0

Imagine your parent writes a 200-page story when you lose a toy. Is that a sign children didn't have many toys in the 1920s? Or perhaps that Tolkien really didn't want to go looking for the lost toy and would much rather fantasize? Jotting away for hours, days, just to explain you didn't lose your toy dog, but that it was in fact a real dog, turned into a toy by magic. And this dog had a whole life and purpose outside being your toy. Meeting many wizards, sea creatures, and, of course, a dragon. Changing its name from Rover to Roverandom because it couldn't share this mundane name with the moon dog who was the original Rover. And let's face it, after such adventures, your name can't just be Rover. It's not epic enough.

Here's Daddy Tolkien spending hours writing his escapist fantasy, which is doubtlessly more enjoying and rewarding than explaining how things actually get lost. Rather than telling a child to just get over it (for days) or replace the toy, you tell your upset child the toy is an epic hero and has more important places to be.

P.S. I'm sure Tolkien improvised it and wrote it down later, but if he can fantasise, I can too.