"Most parents stop reading aloud to their kids when they are six or seven. We never did. Our many hospital stays kept us in good practice. Of course, our son is an avid reader himself, but you try reading while you're flat on your back with drainage tubes, heart monitor wires, and an IV in your arm.

Just after dawn, I opened the pages of The Fellowship Of The Ring. Josh had read the series before, but that didn't matter a wit. I launched into the story and we were pulled into the adventure. Never did we need Middle Earth more than we did then. The book took us from Bilbo's birthday party in Hobbiton, to the Council of Elrond, and onward with Frodo and company to the golden wood of Lothlorien."

[How we turned a hospital into Hobbiton]