Another LOTR Read-Along: Prologue: Concerning Hobbits

Welcome to Another LOTR Read-Along!  As you know, I'm adapting these posts from the course I'm teaching my niece for high school.  The truth is, I'm actually using a lot of things from my first LOTR read-along to teach her, so if you compare these posts with those, you'll find a lot of similarities.  But I think I've got almost entirely different people participating here from that original foray, so I'm assuming that won't be a problem :-)
Today, November 1, is also the beginni...