What age do you recommend reading The Hobbit?

My 10 year old read it on his own last year, and then begged for LOTR. In contrast, my 11 year old was truly bothered by the Hobbit and didn’t make it past the first chapter.  She just wasn’t comfortable with Gandalf.  We respected that and dropped the book.  Like everything, it just depends on the kids.

Are you asking about the reading level or about the maturity level?  For the reading level, it’s probably fine, especially as a read aloud.  But there are some tense moments in the book, there is a wizard that  needs some explaining, a fight with a dragon, etc.  Then, of course, there’s Gollum, but he’s not really creepy until the LOTR books.

I read it aloud when my youngest was 7.  He loved it.  He’s 12 now and has read it twice on his own.  FWIW, we then proceeded to read aloud all the LOTR books, probably getting done when the youngest was maybe 9?  It’s hard to remember.  My kids all loved these books. 

We read The Hobbitt aloud to dd11, ds8, dd5 and they all loved it and are begging daddy to start LOTR. Dd5 had no trouble following and wasn’t bothered by any of it.

I really want to read this to my dc, as well, or have them read it (the whole series) someday. Glad to know that we can as a family, since that may work out to my benefit (I want to read it, too, but don’t have time).

I’m coming late to this discussion, but I just wanted to add a slightly different opinion, just in case. Since you have a younger child who scares easily I thought I should chime in. We are currently reading The Hobbit to our older kids (8 and 10), and I read it when I was in 5th grade, but I would not read it aloud to our younger children. They would certainly be scared. There are definately dark creatures in the book (goblins, trolls, Gollum, a dragon, etc.). If you have a child that is sensitive to these types of things, I just wanted to give you a heads up to be cautious. I agree we previous poster, it really depends on the child.