Reading "To Kill a Mockingbird" as an Adult

When the first Hobbit movie was coming out, I re-read the novel I loved as a kid to reacquaint myself with the story and was more enthralled than I expected to be.

The wry voice was something I missed as a twelve-year-old taken by the adventure and fantasy, and I reconnected immediately with what moved me most the first time: Bilbo's resourcefulness in fooling Gollum and fooling the dragon. In each case, the small, clever Hobbit outwits a fierce enemy-what a treat that must have been for a b...