That’s true. I read “The Hobbit” and all three LOTR novels to my little boys over the last couple of years. I started because our homeschool association had a Hobbit reading club in advance of the first movie’s release. It had been only a couple of years since I read the whole set, but I got so much more out of reading it aloud and having to explain things to the byos.
Now I’m reading “The Silmarillion” to them. We’re about to get out of the mythic prehistory and into some real action sequences, finally! The other day, I said, “Since you’re not doing any schoolwork, we’ll read Tolkien. It’s full of vocabulary.” and my 4-year-old said, “It is not!”
There are several very good readings on audio. We listened to the Hobbit, LOTR, Star Wars, Escape from the Deep (1st WW2 sub sinking escape story - excellent), Greek myths and a bunch of others that I’ve forgotten. They made long car rides or family trips very pleasant. I refuse to watch videos in the car, but the audio books were very good, taught both good writing, good vocabulary and, an often overlooked, but critical skill, good storytelling.