This is a neat curiosity in any Tolkien collection but does not compare to the original as a story. It only has five "scenes": the unexpected party at Bilbo's, Bilbo meeting Gollum, the spiders of Mirkwood, Bilbo and Smaug and the Battle of Five Armies. It starts with Gandalf arriving with some of the dwarves and never introduces the characters and ends just as abruptly with Bilbo shouting "The Eagles are coming!" So unless you're well familiar with the original story and can extend and expand, expect to improvise a lot if you're reading this together with a young audience (which is not necessarily a bad thing I guess). Would probably work better as a companion to the Hobbit - and of course the John Howe illustrations are great.
As a 3D pop-up book it's quite ambitious and uses several techniques. Some things move just by opening the page, others you have to pull or slide, there are strings and see-through objects etc. I found that my copy is very rigid and I'm very afraid of breaking something while handling it - so it's either a collector's item or a child's toy or you have to get two copies! ( )