Kenneth Grahame Books

BennyLA-6

I read the book Wind In The Willows and it was one of the best books I have read. I thought that The book was just going to be an old classic and boring book. But now after reading it, I realize that everybody should read the book once in their lifetime.

The setting of the book is in the Wild Wood and along the river banks. There are many charming characters such as the handsome Mole, the wise and old Badger, the caring and brave Water Rat, and who could forget the crazy and adventurers Toad. There are weasels and ferrets who try to over run Toad Hall.

It all starts when Mole decides to go boating with Ratty instead of doing his annual spring cleaning. He finds a world he never knew was even there. He discovers the Wild Wood, a long river, Toad Hall, and many friends. Mole meets many new friends and lives with Ratty for a while. They all become quick friends. It made me feel happy for Mole when he made friends instead of being shy.

Yet, my least favorite character, Toad tests their great friendship. The reckless Toad gets a hobbie of motorcars and gets taken to the prison for speeding and driving crazy. This made mad me at Toad because he endangered all of the animals. I thought the poor Toad was done for good but no. He manages to escape. Toad gets the washerwomen's outfit and sneaks out of the prison and makes it all the way home. I was amazed at how clever he was to get out. I was glad that Toad got out because the friends could continue their great friendship.

Meanwhile, Water Rat's good friend Otter's son has gone missing. When I read this I was scared because Portly was just a young pup. After a long time searching, they found him alive sitting in all the snow. I was very happy that they had found him.

When the toad comes home he finds that the weasels and ferrets are taking over Toad Hall. Toad gets angry. I would be angry too if someone tried to take over my hall. This is where the wise Badger comes in handy. He knows of an old underground passage to take that leads to Toad Hall. Water Rat collects all his swords and guns to use. Toad goes crazy saying things like "They all go boom." They end up taking back the great Hall and that was a good thing for Toad and everyone.

Wind in the Willows was an awesome book to read for a great plot and fun characters. It is a book for all ages of readers. I enjoyed it and I hope you will too.

BennyLA-6

I read the book Wind In The Willows and it was one of the best books I have read. I thought that The book was just going to be an old classic and boring book. But now after reading it, I realize that everybody should read the book once in their lifetime.

The setting of the book is in the Wild Wood and along the river banks. There are many charming characters such as the handsome Mole, the wise and old Badger, the caring and brave Water Rat, and who could forget the crazy and adventurers Toad. There are weasels and ferrets who try to over run Toad Hall.

It all starts when Mole decides to go boating with Ratty instead of doing his annual spring cleaning. He finds a world he never knew was even there. He discovers the Wild Wood, a long river, Toad Hall, and many friends. Mole meets many new friends and lives with Ratty for a while. They all become quick friends. It made me feel happy for Mole when he made friends instead of being shy.

Yet, my least favorite character, Toad tests their great friendship. The reckless Toad gets a hobbie of motorcars and gets taken to the prison of speeding and driving crazy. This made mad at Toad because he endangered all of the animals. I thought the poor Toad was done for good but no. He manages to escape. Toad gets the washerwomen's outfit and sneaks out of the prison and makes it all the way home. I was amazed at how clever he was to get out. I was glad that Toad got out because the friends could continue their great friendship.

Meanwhile, Water Rat's good friend Otter's son has gone missing. When I read this I was scared because Portly was just a young pup. After a long time searching, they found him alive sitting in all the snow. I was very happy that they had found him.

When the toad comes home he finds that the weasels and ferrets are taking over Toad Hall, Toad gets angry. I would be angry too if someone tried to take over my hall. This is where the wise Badger comes in handy. He knows of a n old underground passage to take that leads to Toad Hall. Water Rat collects all his swords and guns to use. Toad goes crazy saying things like they all go boom. They end up taking back the great Hall and that was a good thing for Toad and everyone.

Wind in the Willows was an awesome book to read for a great plot and fun characters. It is a book for all ages of readers. I enjoyed it and I hope you will too.

I read the book Wind In The Willows and it was one of the best books I have read. I thought that The book was just going to be an old classic and boring book. But now after reading it, I realize that everybody should read the book once in their lifetime.

The setting of the book is in the Wild Wood and along the river banks. There are many charming characters such as the handsome Mole, the wise and old Badger, the caring and brave Water Rat, and who could forget the crazy and adventurers Toad. There are weasels and ferrets who try to over run Toad Hall.

It all starts when Mole decides to go boating with Ratty instead of doing his annual spring cleaning. He finds a world he never knew was even there. He discovers the Wild Wood, a long river, Toad Hall, and many friends. Mole meets many new friends and lives with Ratty for a while. They all become quick friends. It made me feel happy for Mole when he made friends instead of being shy.

Yet, my least favorite character, Toad tests their great friendship. The reckless Toad gets a hobbie of motorcars and gets taken to the prison of speeding and driving crazy. This made mad at Toad because he endangered all of the animals. I thought the poor Toad was done for good but no. He manaages to escape. Toad gets the washerwomen's outfit and sneaks out of the prison and makes it all the way home. I was amazed at how clever he was to get out. I was glad that Toad got out because the friends could continue their great friendship.

Meanwhile, Water Rat's good friend Otter's son has gone missing. When I read this I was scared because Portly was just a young pup. After a long time searching, they found him alive sitting in all the snow. I was very happy that they had found him.

When the toad comes home he finds that the weasels and ferrets are taking over Toad Hall, Toad gets angry. I would be angry too if someone tried to take over my hall. This is where the wise Badger comes in handy. He knows of a n old underground passage to take that leads to Toad Hall. Water Rat collects all his swords and guns to use. Toad goes crazy saying things like they all go boom. They end up taking back the great Hall and that was a good thing for Toad and everyone.

Wind in the Willows was an awesome book to read for a great plot and fun characters. It is a book for all ages of readers. I enjoyed it and I hope you will too.

What a difference a month makes. Just a few weeks ago I pronounced Seastar Books' new edition of "The Wind in the Willows" the best gift edition of the 1908 children's classic since illustrator Ernest Shephard's classic version, due to the glorious acrylic and watercolor paintings by Mary Jane Begin ("The Porcupine Mouse," "A Mouse Told His Mother"). Yet surprisingly, it has already been surpassed, so I must pass the trophy to Harcourt's new unabridged edition. It's beautifully presented in a wide, landscape format with a satin ribbon bookmark to keep your place when the stories dutifully fulfill their destiny as bedtime reading. The notable source of the book's special appeal, of course, is the charming new artwork by extraordinary English watercolorist Michael Foreman. The pages are filled with gently expressive mixed-media paintings, from the end-papers map of Wildwood and its surroundings, to a rollicking train ride, and the wild rumpus at Toad Hall. And the illustrations are generously plentiful: nearly every two-page spread contains at least one color sketch. The sheer number of illustrations tremendously enriches the story, and the Foreman's light-handed technique, previously apparent in "Michael Foreman's Mother Goose," "Joan of Arc" and "Arthur, High King of Britain" -- is a lovely tribute to the similar style of Shephard himself. Well done.

Soon after getting Wind in the Willows (Michael Hague, illustrator) from the library, my daughter fell in love - at bedtime, it's 'Toad! Toad!' and 'Hang spring cleaning!'. So, based on reviews of this edition, I decided to buy it. Sadly, we were both disappointed. The book is still great, but the illustrations in this edition are mediocre at best. Cartoonish and bland, they don't come close to doing justice to the author. The Michael Hague edition may have fewer illustrations, but they are deep, rich and glorious - just like the book. If your child is ready for this book, she's ready for 'grown-up' illustrations, too.
Do yourself a favor - get the Hague edition instead.

It's been many years since I read this book and I got this one
for a niece (7 years old) and thought I'd read it first myself.

It is very nicely illustrated; kids will love the pictures
and the lettering is large, so if they are being read to, they
will find it easier to follow along.

That said, the level of comprehension is probably that of early teen, rather than pre-teen. Maybe that says more about my level of comprehension? :)

However, the book (stories) are classics and I am sure any child (or adult) would be delighted with this as a gift.

Victorians are experiencing something of a comeback after decades of censure as the strange, repressed, half-crazy relatives we don't want to tell anyone about. We are discovering that the Victorians were not so different from us.

The Victorians did, however, produce their own brand of eccentricity and none are as delightfully eccentric as the Victorian/Edwardian writers for children discussed in Inventing Wonderland. Jackie Wullschlager starts with that greatest of all Wonderland writers, the master himself Lewis Carroll and ends with Jazz Age Pooh creator A.A. Milne.

The eccentricity of these Victorian writers is their confident, and sometimes troubling, obsession with childhood itself. Wullschlager assures us, correctly, that these writers' obsessions did not cross the line into pedophilic behavior. To 21st century sensibilities this seems scarcely creditable, especially after reading letters by Lewis Carroll to various girl children. Carroll, Lear, Barrie and Grahame's effusions about childhood can only be understood within the context of the Victorian age, the age that produced and adored Wordsworth's overly quoted (then and now) "But trailing clouds of glory do we come/From God, who is our home" (Ode: Intimations of Immortality From Recollections of Early Childhood).

Wullschlager is, I think, a bit too dismissive of Milne, who is regarded in the text as a has-been, clinging to the last remnants of the Victorian celebration of childhood. Wullschlager's overall point in this regard, however, is well made. The Victorians invented and took seriously the concept of childhood as a wonderland. Consequently, they produced children's writers of a truly magnificent stature. When the concept of childhood=innocence & pleasure was abandoned, in the early 20th century (thank you, Freud!), the result was an almost tongue-in-cheek parody of the earlier writers. It just wasn't possible to take childhood that seriously anymore.

Writers for children have of course continued to produce masterpieces, largely in the fantasy area, but that particular brand of unself-conscious Victorian nonsense and idyllicism may be lost forever. The Victorians are not as strange to us as we may like to believe, but they are certainly unreproducable.

Recommendation: Interesting, well-written, well-paced. Not the most complete biographical sketches but a complete analysis of biography and art. Give it a try.

As a self-proclaimed James Barrie freak, I've read numerous books and newspaper-magazine articles about him. The Barrie chapter in Inventing Wonderland is definetly one of the most informative, but it loses a few points in the entertainment department. I read the Carroll, Barrie, and Milne chapters and thought that Jackie Wullschlager tends to examine her subjects a little too closely. At times, her meaning becomes lost in a pile of pop psychobabble, but the overall impressions were very clear (especially Carroll's disturbing fixation with little girls). Especially touching were A.A. Milne's bittersweet descriptions of pride in his adult son Christopher Robin, but at the same time longing to play with his little boy just once more. Such nostalgic, personal pieces make the book is beautiful, but it would be about a hundred times more beautiful if the author had kept the stories a little simpler.

This Toad Flies High Wind Wind in the Willows book is one of the old Little Golden books we had kept and it is ok but not a favorite of mine it wasn't a book that I read over and over again and there are a lot of other Little Golden books that I liked a lot better and I wish we had kept them instead of this one.

I first read it as a little girl and haved loved it ever since, even though I don't own it!

I remember this book. It was given to me as a birthday present when I was young. I loved it! My father read it to me until the pages fell out. I lost it in a move several years ago and was overjoyed to find it for sale after having been unavailable for many years. The pictures are amazing. The detail is spectacular. I haven't seen another edition with such fine illustrations. The characters came to life for me as a child through these pictures. I fell in love with the story and rat and mole became my best friends. I recommend this book. Make someone's childhood.

While I'm sure this book will evoke many fond memories for those who read it as a child, please be aware that it is very abridged. Large format, large type, nicely illustrated, inexpensive... and abridged.

The number of characters in the Greek myths is so huge that students complained of memory-strain in classical antiquity itself. The quotation in my caption is from no less a literary figure than Juvenal. What I value Graves's collection for is that it is so handy and readable. It reminds me who was who, and I'm not inclined to assess it as any kind of academic production. Graves is a diligent dilettante, getting his learning mainly at second hand but with his own slant too. For proper academic comment on the individual myths we need to go to proper academic sources, and we should treat a great many of them with reserve too, I say from experience. When it comes to the labyrinthine maze of anthropology, where the experts are themselves at odds, a little learning is an especially dangerous thing, and all we should expect from Graves is rough guidance.

The first volume is inevitably rather disjointed. The second takes us on to more familiar territory, largely devoted to Hercules. It leads on naturally from there to the Argonauts, and unless

by now you just want an embargo
placed upon the good ship Argo

you should find a more fluent narrative, taking us on to the fall of Troy and the wanderings of Odysseus. Graves ends with a coy reference to his coy novel Homer's Daughter, and as both that book and his index here commit him to the traditional but wildly unlikely belief that its heroine's name Nausicaa means `burner of ships' I should advise that in the matter of the meaning of names Graves is out of his depth. So for that matter is Liddell and Scott's lexicon, and so are most classical editions I can remember.

The ancients loved trying to explain names, their attempts are largely shots in the dark, and matters have advanced little since except among specialists, as the subject is thought dull. However the issue is important. Languages develop word-formations, and names derived from words, by processes that are entirely systematic. Sometimes the meaning of names and descriptions is clear and obvious, e.g. Oedipus = swollen-feet and Creon = prince. However in many cases apparent resemblances between words, even very close resemblances, lead us astray. The processes of early word-formation are often disguised by later sound-shifts and/or by spelling, which I shall illustrate by just two examples at * below. Graves has the sense not to believe that `am&zon' means lacking a breast and the sense (or luck) to doubt one traditional derivation of Ariadne. However he swallows uncritically the ancient `derivation' of Virbius as `man twice', which is impossible, and I wonder who told him that medusa, which is just the feminine of `medon' meaning lord, means `cunning'. He does not explicitly endorse the Homeric description of Zeus `terpikeraunos', (which means `hurler of thunderbolts'), as `rejoicing in thunderbolts', but as that is in Liddell and Scott I doubt he doubted it, and it makes for a good clear example. My other example is his own dear Nausicaa, which means `excelling in ships'.

*
It helps to know that the Indo-European languages are pervaded by `vowel-gradation'. This is an alternation of o and e, and familiar in English from, say, foot/feet, loan/lend, steal/stole, know/knew etc. Sometimes different languages show different grades of the same root, e.g. English for-get/German ver-gess. There is also a third grade, the zero grade with no vowel, and in kn-ow/kn-ew not only the suffix (-ow/-ew) is graded, so is the stem, where English has the zero grade kn- and German the e-grade `ken-` in the verb `kennen'.

When Jupiter hurls his thunderbolts (`keraunos' is the Greek) in Latin poetry, the verb used is `torquet' (or its compound `intorquet'). This shows the o-grade of the IE root `torkw-/terkw-`, whereas Homer's Zeus has the e-grade in terkw-i-keraunos. The `-kw-` sound is kept pure in Latin, but changed to p in Greek in a way subject to systematic rules, giving `terpikeraunos'. However the Greek verb for rejoicing is `terpomai', and that has sent many scholars on their way rejoicing in a mistaken derivation.

Now poor Nausicaa. Split the name into its components as follows

(1)Naw-s -(2)i--(3)ka?--(4)a(or -e in Homer)

1 is the word for `ship', with the zero grade (`-s') of the suffix. 2 is the thematic vowel, a linking-sound between syllables, 4 is the feminine termination. What's 3? Graves and others think it is from the verb `to burn'. The IE root of that is `kawy-` or `kayw-`, with two sonants w and y. Most Greek dialects, including the Homeric dialect, drop one or other sonant: none, so far as I recall, drops both, which is what this derivation would require. There is another root `kas-`, however, which we find in the name Epikaste, the Odyssey's version of Jocasta, and that name means `surpassing'. We find it also in the Attic verb `to excel', which is in origin `kas-numai', but disguised by a later sound-shift into `kainumai'. Now take Naw-s--i--kas--a. Greek loses an inherited s between vowels, so that becomes Nawsikaa, and there we have it. (The spelling Nausikaa helps the confusion, because the spelling does not distinguish the vowel u from the sonant w). However it should not need this rigmarole to tell anyone that Sicilian royalty were not going to affront the gods by calling their princess 'burner of ships'. Common sense ought to help.

The handsome Folio Society edition, with helpful maps, was sent to me as an inducement to buy more. I am grateful but not induced, and it is doubtless ungracious of me to say that I am agin editions of this type, which seem intended for people who use books to impress the neighbours. In whatever format, this is a sort of work of reference for me. I can recommend it from that point of view, but remember when you read it that it is not to be read as any kind of oracle.

An excellent source for the background to Grahame's classic work. Letters from Grahame to his children when he was away. Shows the beginning of many of the story threads that eventually were woven together into "The Wind in the Willows"

I thought the original Wind in the Willows and the sequel Willows in Winter were better executed than Toad Triumphant. Toad Triumphant is a little disjointed, the characterization a little unbelievable at times (e.g. mole's depression) and the story sags in parts (although things pick up with Horwood's clever ending). On the other hand, Patrick Benson deserves high marks for his excellent illustrations which accompany the text. I suppose Mr. Horwood wanted to try something a little different by delving into the histories of the river bank animals and bringing romantic love into their world, but I don't believe this approach worked as well. I feel the book is better than average, but as I said, I like Kenneth Grahame's orginal and Horwood's first sequel better.

I read this book becuase I picked it out of the school library becuase that's what we were doing for our school play this year.I think this book was meant for younger children because I thought that it didn;t tell me the whkole story and left a lot out from the original copy. I will try to get the original copy from the library since I'm interested in this book.

I bought this book because I was so very impressed with the Willows in Winter and the way Horwood carried on in the vein of Graham, but this book - well, I read it outloud to the family and we all burst out crying in the end. There was no reason whatsoever to end what has been a lifelong fantasy for some. I have to put it on the very bottom of Horwood's work.

I purchased this book for my elderly mother whose favorite book is Wind in the Willows. She is equally charmed by William Horwood's books as they continue the adventures of Mr Toad and his stalwart woodland friends. Horwood writes in a style that seamlessly complements Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows. Patrick Benson's illustrations are lovely and they add details and charm to the story as it moves along. All in all, we were both very happy with The Willows and Beyond as well as the other Horwood/Benson "Willows" books. If you love Wind in the Willows, you will certainly be a fan of William Horwood's "Willows" books.

This book is good, but not great. The first two books are excellent after that it gets kind of old. If you are a fan of the series, you can handle it.

I've read the whole Willows series written by Mr. Horwood and I have to say each one was exceptional. This book in particular is the last book of his series, the final chapters in the lives of these wonderful creatures. Mr. Horwood has written his books in a manner that enthralls children and adults alike, and although not nearly as popular, I'd rate this series up there on the level of the Harry Potter books.

Powerful conclusion to the loosely nicknamed Tales of the Willows series that began with Kenneth Grahame's original classic The Wind in the Willows and was followed up by the just as fantastic sequels by William Horwood (The Willows at Christmas, The Willows in Winter, Toad Triumphant and this book).

Readers should definitely pick up Horwood's earlier volumes as this is very much the conclusion to the series and is in every way a chronological follow-up to those works. Details will not be given away here (as in the poor taste shown by other reviewers) but to say that this is definitely a denouement, a conclusion and finale... though one filled with plenty of hope and future promise.

In many ways, The Willows and Beyond is similar to the final chapters of The Lord of the Rings, and is equally mournful and sad, at times achingly so. Yet contrary to other, more fragile reviewers, however, it is not without merit and expertly handled. It is in fact the perfect conclusion. Everything in this book is grounded firmly in what Kenneth Grahame himself established in his original. The River Bank is NOT Oz. Its residents are not the tired, immortal creatures of Disney or Marvel or DC, and that is a good thing! Concluding the series (especially with such dignity as Horwood gives it here) lends a strength and vitality to the story and characters that prevents it from being cheapened by endless marketing and cash-ins.

Grahame's original is nostalgic and sentimental, but not devoid of realism; within the natural world the oftentimes cruel scepter of grief strikes a blow. And as lovable as his characters are and as often as they're spared that blow, even they cannot escape the the tragic Inevitable. The Willows and Beyond, however, contains much joy and hope, and borrows from Grahame in allowing the River Bank inhabitants to glimpse on the spiritual realm, embodied here in the Beyond, and THAT is the essence of what this story is about. This is a classic in every sense of the word and one I believe Grahame would have loved. For further adventures of Ratty, Mole, Toad and Badger, read Horwood's prior volumes and watch the wonderfully produced Wind in the Willows series (now on DVD) which details the characters' early years following The Wind in the Willows. But when you're ready, don't miss the finale, this masterpiece which belongs on the shelf of every Willows fan.