The Children of Húrin (in Review)
I just finished up The Children of Húrin. I’d recommend it to Tolkien fans, but it’s a little harder to recommend more broadly.
The book is written in a style much like that in The Silmarillion – like a legend from the past being retold thousands of years later – and so it lacks the immediacy of The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit. It’s also a lot darker: there’s a lot of death and not a whole lot of happiness to be found by its protagonists. I enjoyed it, but I’m enamored enough with Middle Earth that I’ll read almost anything that fills out its history (though I can’t say I’ve managed to get through even one volume of The History of Middle Earth).
In terms of how “hardcore” Tolkien it is, it falls somewhere between The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings. If you’re dedicated enough that you’ve read The Unfinished Tales (and maybe even The History of Middle Earth) then Children will be familiar ground (especially since the outline of the story is already told in both The Silmarillion and The Unfinished Tales). On the other hand, if you found The Lord of the Rings a bit of a slog, Children, while shorter, probably won’t be any easier going.