First note:
You have gained a follower. And maybe more soon.
Second note:
My daughter loved sitting on my knee and opening chests at the end of season - can't do that now in the same way.
Okay, enough with the notes. This is a great reflection on what I was writing about and brings in some new aspects that I hadn't mentioned. I am also going to consider reading to my wife, or perhaps reading a book together as a family.
When it comes to time, what I do with Smallsteps (my daughter's nickname here) is read a few pages at a time. We have made it through Dr, Seuss series, Roald Dahl books, the Narnia series, the Mary Poppins series, The Hobbit... a few pages every second night and a few weeks or months later, it is onto the next volume. It is great for her English skills, since Finnish is her main language and the one she uses 90% of the time.
I like how you mentioned the narrative and the mental images. I read the LoTR as a child and a few times since, and know it well. However, my created world was replaced once I saw the movies years later. The familiar faces that I had designed, were wiped away and actors stood in their places instead. I loved the movies, but watching them came at a great price to my imagination.
Now I am rambling :)
Thanks for the great post and I will forgive the cross-post, though I am normally not a fan :)
I will not crosspost again, promise!
My little one (the nickname idea is cool, I'll find one) is currently a fan of Erich Kästner, one of the best and criminally underrated German writers. She doesn't understand most of the jokes, since the word plays are from the 1930s, but the book "The 35. of May" is just an impressive example of both imagination (it's absolutely crazy) and foresight (self-driving cars for example): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_35th_of_May;_or,_Conrad%27s_Ride_to_the_South_Seas
If you want to blow imagination to the top - that's a good book.
The little one is 6 years old, so the Hobbit is a little too much for her. I'm thinking about getting into Astrid Lindgren with her next - she already knows Tomte Tummetot and a few smaller works, as well as the Sven Nordqvist books. But I'll look into Roald Dahl, I remember I loved his books, but don't remember my age.
And I agree on the images. The friend I mention has read LOTR many times, and left me his 7-book-copies (the 6 original plus the annex), the most precious (lol) among the many things he left on his move. He hated the movies, and I think the destruction of the images he had created were part of it.