Interesting responses all. Thank you. I have a new context that differs from those of yours.
It was reading The Hobbit to my children. I hadn't realised at the time that I was possibly 'seeing' it as Tolkien had, through the eyes of his children. Now, years later, I wonder if my son's and then my daughter's reactions were similar to those of Christopher and the other Tolkien boys. Interestingly, The Hobbit remains the favourite of my daughter, who does not really like LotR, while my son I suspect favours The Silm. I can't recall ever reading anything whether Tolkien read it to Priscilla as a child or what her response was. Possibly I've missed something or forgotten some details of what I have read on Tolkien.
After I posted this thread, I received an email about a Tolkien blog that I follow, written by Tom Emanuel, who is a minister in the American United Church of Christ and also currently a doctoral student in fantasy at the University of Glascow. His interest is how reading LotR has molded its readers, including himself. I know quite a few here are not particularly interested in academic work on Tolkien--all well and good, there are many ways to enjoy his work--but he begins with his story of his first reading of Tolkien to his infant son and then moves into questions of why we "re-immerse ourselves in Middle-Earth", "The Tale We've Fallen Into: Reading The Lord of the Rings, Rereading Ourselves." The video is an enjoyable performance. Don't let the title of the blog throw you off. It simply means analysing Tolkien in different contexts, outside the normative.
https://queerandback.substack.com/p/...-jYLGWdrChHEhQ