“Home” is not just a place or a thing; it represents the place where you feel most safe and protected, where you feel accepted or part of a community and where you generally feel you belong. However, home can also be what protects you from the outside world, leaving you unprepared to face situations and dangers outside of your knowledge. Often in children's stories, the character must leave his place of safety and go on a journey. This is because to grow as a person you must leave what is safe and familiar and venture into the unknown to truly challenge yourself and be able to return home with new knowledge and perspectives. This essay will focus on two characters who go through this transformation resulting from abandoning their "homes"; Bilbo and his hobbit hole at Bag House, and Meggie and her father, Mo, and her beloved books. Both are attached to their "homes" and feel anxious and lonely without them. Bilbo and Meggie's journeys show how, when separated from their homes, they persevere despite their insecurities and doubts and become stronger and more self-sufficient at the end of their lives. respected texts.1. Bilbo Baggins Bilbo Baggins' hobbit hole is his happy home, where for fifty years he has been content to stay to avoid the dangers and hardships of the outside world. In the novel, it is the house he thinks about most often and, ultimately, where he must leave from to live his adventures and grow. His attachment to home can be contributed to three factors; it is physical comfort, its protection from the outside world and its representation of social position. The hobbit's lair, the narrator tells us, means comfort (11), and explains the comfortable furniture, the pantries full of food and the cupboards full of c...... middle of paper......power it also comes with more active courage in Meggie; for example, he may now defiantly refuse to give Capricorn and his companions what they want: “'I won't read aloud this evening,' he said. «Last night you shot my father. Just told me. I won't read a word […] Why should he be afraid? They needed her. She was the only one who could read to them their miserable Shadow from the book; no one else could do it…” (440-441). With this power he can take an active role in the story; instead of looking at evil with frightened eyes, he can use his power to save everyone. He does this by destroying Capricorn and his men once and for all, with Mo at his side (quote). So instead of doing something for Meggie to protect her, she and her father work together as equals in terms of power and maturity to banish the evil that has inflicted on their lives. .