There is no doubt that the Elder Days and First Age are my favorite era and works of J.R.R. Tolkien’s entire legendarium. The tale of The Children of Húrin is one of them. Having first read the original story in The Silmarillion and the additional writings of it in Unfinished Tales, I already knew the story prior to reading this book. This books is essentially a recollection of the both works into a single monolithic book. The writing style of this book follows of that of Unfinished Tales, rather than the complex writing of The Silmarillion.

The tale of The Children of Húrin is sad and tragic, and also dark grim story. The story itself, is fairly short compared to The Lord of the Rings or even The Hobbit. It’s worth mentioning for anyone new wanting to read this fantastic book; they’re NO Hobbits in this tale. In fact, Sauron doesn’t have a role in this story. The chief antagonist of the tale is Morgoth and his dragon Glaurung. The primary protagonist of this tale is Húrin’s son Túrin. The story mainly consists of Túrin’s childhood and life during a very grim time in Middle-earth. A part of Middle-earth that no longer exists by the time the events of the Lord of the Rings occur!

For new readers, while the array of characters in this mentioned in this book is fairly big. The book does have an index at the end of the book that provides more information about them. This would help anyone new to this tale comprehend the story better. For readers that already know the story and have already read The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales, this book does have some slight difference the original tale. Christopher Tolkien does mention the differences.

I don’t want to give out any spoilers, but if there’s one thing that I learned that I read why reading the original story in The Silmarillion; is that good does not always prevails against evil.