I read The Hobbit back in grade six, after reading [b:The Lord of the Rings|34|The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, Part 1)|J.R.R. Tolkien|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1156043001s/34.jpg|3204327]. My first impression of Tolkien was simply how good he was at writing high fantasy and not making it sound pretentious. It helps that he was one of the fathers of the modern fantasy genre.