Four animals are the main characters in this book, a superb, adventurous, amusing entertainment from 1908. Ratty the friendly river rat and loves his stream , Badger, sour, not a fan of others keeps in the woods, Mole uncomfortable, shy, lives in a hole, and Toad , rich, incorrigible, very fun- loving though a bit unhinged, with the biggest, best house in the neighborhood . These four, close friends...sometimes...they can and will annoy each but never be disunited for long. Toad the fearless, th...

Gentle British Bedtime StoryPublished in 1907, The Wind in the Willows is decidedly British literature. Before even getting to the exclamation of “Stuff and nonsense!", there is some mild swearing and sophisticated vocabulary for a children’s book.The book focuses on a cast of animals and their adventures: Mole, Rat, Badger, and (my personal favorite) Toad.The world is cozy, and I found myself breaking out randomly in smile while reading this.Although this comfort read is enjoyable, the paragrap...

A delightful and entrancing story for children to wonder and adults to ponder! :)The protagonists, our incorrigible and exasperating toad, the loyal and responsible friends, the water rat and ever-gadding mole, and finally our revered badger. It's about the forest adventures of the comrades rat and mole, luncheons, dinner parties, forest gala setting and hubbub, the vanity and conceited adventures of Mr. Toad and the sagacity of our revered Badger. All are gallivanting around in the forest, a pu...

This book is no plot, just vibes.If you're in the mood to just think about forest animals wearing tweed, and picnics in rowboats, and dinner parties attended by a bunch of rabbits and stuff à la the third act of Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr Fox, and it's cool with you if that replaces story altogether, you're in luck.In short, if you want to get the same effect as if you looked at this picture for about an hour:You're in the right place.Bottom line: I cannot imagine children reading this book, bu...

I feel like I have been in a bit of a reading slump lately. It is not that I am reading a whole lot less, I am just not REALLY enjoying the time that I am reading. It might be that the whole family is in back to school mode, so schedules have changed. Or, maybe just the general ups and downs of life will occasionally put me in a “low interest in reading” category. All of this just to say that The Wind in The Willows is another victim of my “reading is meh” state.When I first started this, I trie...

Some of the best children’s classics have started with an adult inventing stories to tell to a child. “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”, “Winnie the Pooh”, “Peter Pan” and even “Watership Down” all began this way, as did many others. The Wind in the Willows is another such. Like them, it is a novel which can be read on many levels, and arguably has a hidden subtext. And like some others, its writing was prompted by a family tragedy.Kenneth Grahame had already established himself as a talented w...

So fun and whimsical!

An Edwardian children's book that ends with the reimposition by force of the traditional squirearchical social order on the upstart lower orders as represented by Weasels, Stoats and Ferrets.It is a through introduction to traditional British conservatism, of the Country Life rather than the Economist variety, for children with a side order of mild paganism. As such is an unwitting counterpoint to The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.As with How to Read Donald Duck, once you look at it and shrug...

Trying to review The Wind in the Willows is a strange undertaking. In the introduction to my copy, A. A. Milne wrote:"One can argue over the merits of most books... one does not argue about The Wind in the Willows. The young man gives it to the girl with whom he is in love, and if she does not like it, he asks her to return his letters. The old man tries it on his nephew, and alters his will accordingly. ... When you sit down to [read] it, don't be so ridiculous as to suppose you are sitting in ...

This was my son's favourite book. He was forever putting skirts of mine over his head and filling a basket with dirty laundry wandering around the house (with his father aiding and abetting him) saying he was Toad the washerwoman. It looks like a lovely idyll of a small society of animals who live around the riverbank and have to put up with Toad whose money and grandiose schemes make him the dominant and eccentric character. Everyone loves the book and no one notices what is wrong with it.What'...