Apparently it is unfathomable that a child could read a 310 page book (The Hobbit).
Presumably, then, no child has ever read Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which is 317 pages and definitely not Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which is 766.
I think it's probably best if we stop assuming children are stupid, can't read and have no attention span.
I read The Hobbit in one sitting when I was 6. This is hardly remarkable.
Read the entire Lord of the Rings series and the Hobbit when I was 9. My daughter read the Harry Potter series - over 3500 pages total. Perhaps the problem isn’t the number of pages but an issue with reading for pleasure?
The Hobbit was described by its own author as a children’s book. It was written specifically for this purpose to lighten his heavier prose of his more serious works. If Tolkien himself is saying it’s written for kids, I’m not arguing with that.