The Silmarillion in the Vernacular

[Pitchwife]

[OT]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

Also to be fair I think The Lord of the Rings is, in some ways, a lot more mature work than The Silmarillion. Sure, Silm has suicide and incest and genocide and no happy ending, but it is mostly told from a rather detached perspective. It is, in a sense, very close to whether you would expose your children to any traditional mythology at a young age.

While LotR? Is actually super creepy and emotionally affecting at times. The descriptions can be very vivid and you get attached to the characters much easier, and therefore you as a reader are probably much more worried about Frodo's fate than you ever were for say Túrin's.

Yep, LotR was a huge step forward in Tolkien's development as a writer, and I think he knew it - hence the reworking of the Great Tales in a more detailed, vivid, LotR-ish style that brought us the prose Narn, Tuor and his Coming to Gondolin etc. Whereas the Silmarillion reads more like an Elven bible, its gruesome parts tempered by the distanced mode of telling - which is why the Old Testament isn't usually considered unfit for children (or is it?).[/OT]

As to the topic proper, I fear I have little to contribute, having neither children nor underage siblings, and I'm not sure the cats and dogs would appreciate being told about Huan and Tevildo, so... as you were.