RANDOM JOTTINGS

A blog about music, sports, theatre and rants

Long time blogger just moved to wordpress. Love music, theatre, movies, sport (tennis and cricket) and cooking. Two great daughters, two great granddaughters.

What on Earth is Wind in the Willows?

Have just been on Face book and this link to the OUP blog was posted there.   I had just sat down to write a post before driving off to London but my brain was feeling a bit frazzled, so when I came across this and read it and found it fascinating, I decided I would cheat today and put the link here so you can read it:

The writer of this post asks if Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows is really a children's book?  I have had mixed feelings about this for some time as I did not read it until adulthood but….well I won't write any more, just read this post instead which I found intriguing and let me know your thoughts.

I have just recently received the OUP new edition of Wind in the WIllows and have yet to read the full preface which I shall now do with added interest.

Posted in

5 responses to “What on Earth is Wind in the Willows?”

  1. anne Avatar
    anne

    Wind in the Willows was my brother’s favorite book, as a kid. Of course, he was an “odd” kid, into how things were made (like wine, at the age of 12) and very bright, etc. I remember the stories as well, and found the characters fun, etc. Imagine how excited my bro was to find Mr Toad’s Wild Ride as a ride at Disney World, when he was all grown up :)
    I’d say, depends on the kid, and how much exposure they have to literature as small people (did someone read to them beginning when they were very small?), as to if the book is more for grown-ups or for kids. Kids used to be seen as small adults, in some ways, perhaps that accounts for some of it.
    And there are layers of understanding.

    Reply
  2. Kat Avatar
    Kat

    I loved Wind in the Willows and read it on a winter day while my parents were painting the living room. I can remember watching them painting and also managing to read the winter scene in which a sleepy Badger opens his home to Rat and Mole when they are lost in the woods.
    An utterly charming novel, but I must confess I didn’t finish it when I tried to read it as an adult.

    Reply
  3. Sheila Beaumont Avatar
    Sheila Beaumont

    I agree with Hunt that, like Alice in Wonderland, The Wind in the Willows is better enjoyed and appreciated by adults than by children. I first read it as an adult, and have reread it many times since then. I remember that C.S. Lewis wrote somewhere that he never read Wind in the Willows until he was grown up, and that he didn’t feel he’d missed anything by not having read it as a child.

    Reply
  4. Maggy Avatar
    Maggy

    I guess there are lots of deep ‘psycho’things in it! I really took a definite liking to ‘Mole’ … I saw a film as well (which is on you tube) and I am quite keen on the singing bits too…in this film! The drawings in the book are so sweet, and any time I walk along Hythe Canal I imagine Ratty and Mole… Dreams of childhood! I will be delighted to read you on this great book!

    Reply
  5. Liz F Avatar
    Liz F

    I read Wind In The Willows as a serial in a childrens magazine called Treasure in the 1960’s so I am guessing that it was very much edited.
    I have always thought that it is a bit like the Winnie The Pooh books – adults like reading them to children but the children are a little underwhelmed (at least mine were!). The only A.A Milne books that mine had any time for were the two volumes of poems “When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six – and looking back I think that they were my favourite too! At any rate The King’s Breakfast is still one of the few poems that I can recite from start to finish, shaming though it is to admit it!

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Discover more from RANDOM JOTTINGS

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading