The Problem with Tradition

Today, a video game got me thinking about tradition.

My wife bought me "Aragorn's Quest" for Christmas, so I have been playing that for the past few days. My little son -- six -- got interested. Now he's playing it.

He got interested, similarly, in "The Hobbit" video game that I played about a year ago. Today, he started asking me about The Lord of the Rings on which, of course, the "Aragorn's Quest" game is based. Before he played "The Hobbit," we had read the book together, so I had no problem. But we haven't ventured into The Lord of the Rings, yet, so I started having that English teacher feeling -- that "you-should-read-the-book-first" feeling. I felt guilty. After all, the traditional way is to read the book first. Right? Not necessarily. I had to remind myself of this.