Roverandom, by J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999. Trade paperback, $12.00. 0-395-95799-0.

This is the first paperback of a short novel Tolkien wrote for his children in the mid-1920s. It was first published in hardcover in 1998.

In 1925, Tolkien’s son Michael, then nearly five years old, lost his miniature toy dog on the beach. Tolkien wrote Roverandom to console his son. It tells the story of a dog named Rover, who annoys a wizard and is turned into a toy. The toy Rover is then lost on the beach by a young boy, and later found by a sand-sorcerer, who animates the toy. Roverandom tells of the random adventures of this toy dog Rover, on the far side of the Moon and under the sea.

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This is a charming story, on the same level of Tolkien’s earlier posthumous children’s book Mr. Bliss. To fans of The Lord of the Rings it may, however, seem a bit slight, but with the understanding that it is a story written by Tolkien for his children it can be enjoyed for being exactly that–and a well-done children’s tale at that.

There are five illustrations by Tolkien included with the book, three in color and two in black and white. They are delightful, and they recall some of Tolkien’s illustrations from his Father Christmas Letters, and from The Hobbit. This edition also includes a scholarly introduction by the editors, and several pages of notes at the end spelling out allusions and references in Tolkien’s text.