The Wind in the Willows (Young Classics)
by Kenneth Grahame
published
March 23rd 2000
(first published 1908)
by Dorling Kindersley Publishers Ltd
edit
binding
Paperback, 48 pages
isbn
0751370290
(isbn13: 9780751370294)
description
Adapted by Sally Grindley
Illustrated by Eric Copeland
Illustrated by Eric Copeland
Sign in to Goodreads to see your friends' reviews of this book.
discuss this book
| topics | replies | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Book Challenge: Rachel's 'Read All The Unread Books On Her Shelves' Challenge | 12 | 142 | 1 day ago, 09:44AM | |
| The Book Challenge: Angie's read all the unread books on her bookshelf challenge. | 7 | 26 | 2 days ago, 10:46AM | |
| 100+ Book Challenge: koralute's books of 2008 | 4 | 263 | 10/05/2008 09:35AM |
groups with this book
friend reviews (0)
To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.
lists with this book
Where's the love? Add this book to your favorite list.
other reviews (showing 1-20 of 4419)
All ratings |
5 stars (1225)
|
4 stars (1271)
|
3 stars (782)
|
2 stars (148)
|
1 star (43)
|
avg 4.04
This is one of those books I want to love; I REALLY, really want to love this book. I've read so many essays by book lovers who have fond, childhood memories of being read this by their father, or who ushered in spring each year by taking this book to a grassy field and reading this in the first warm breezes of May. I want to find the tea and boating and wooded English countryside to be slow yet sonoriously comforting, like a Bach cello suite or a warm cup of cider on a cool April night.
...more
...more
Like this review?
yes
(3 people liked it)
add a comment
Read in April, 2008
I found Wind in the Willows to be one of those rare books that contains true joy. Several times since I have moved in with the Kenyons, I have gotten in a disagreement with another opinionated member of the household over the value of "dark" literature versus "light" literature. "It is so easy to write about dark things," she might say. "Why don't we focus on happiness?" I think when most people read a "happy" story, they find it shallow, unr...more
Like this review?
yes
(2 people liked it)
2 comments
Read in September, 2007
recommends it for:
Everyone
This is my favourite book of all time.
Perhaps it is the very Timelessness of the Tale that makes it so appealing.
I love the ambience; reminiscent of gentler times, unemcumbered by the material frippery, with which we surround ourselves in this rapid and relentless 21st Century.
I never tire of reading the exquisite dialogue; check out the one about the door mat! Just thinking about Ratty and his love affair with the peaceful riverbank, makes me calm and flow!
Toad is infuriating with his...more
Perhaps it is the very Timelessness of the Tale that makes it so appealing.
I love the ambience; reminiscent of gentler times, unemcumbered by the material frippery, with which we surround ourselves in this rapid and relentless 21st Century.
I never tire of reading the exquisite dialogue; check out the one about the door mat! Just thinking about Ratty and his love affair with the peaceful riverbank, makes me calm and flow!
Toad is infuriating with his...more
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
4 comments
Read in March, 2008
I picked this book up at a library sale for about $2. I'm reading it aloud to the kids as "bedtime stories." We're also intermittenly watching a few of the million movie versions.
At first the kids stared blankly off into space as I read, as the words are bigger and more complex even than the ones I use with them (and more than a few people have taken notice of how "big" I speak to my kids). Even I had to read pages a second time to understand what exactly we were reading ...more
At first the kids stared blankly off into space as I read, as the words are bigger and more complex even than the ones I use with them (and more than a few people have taken notice of how "big" I speak to my kids). Even I had to read pages a second time to understand what exactly we were reading ...more
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
1 comments
Read in November, 2008
They don't write books like The Wind in the Willows anymore.
Today's books for children are sly rhymes, action and social engineering. Wind belongs to an older, more innocent time when even accomplished men such as Kenneth Grahmane, A. A. Milne and J. R. r. Tolkien invented stories for their children.
Stories which over the years became classics of literature.
Wind isn't a fairy tale so much as it's life told for those who will inherit it. Told by those who love th...more
Today's books for children are sly rhymes, action and social engineering. Wind belongs to an older, more innocent time when even accomplished men such as Kenneth Grahmane, A. A. Milne and J. R. r. Tolkien invented stories for their children.
Stories which over the years became classics of literature.
Wind isn't a fairy tale so much as it's life told for those who will inherit it. Told by those who love th...more
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
add a comment
Read in January, 1968
A gift from my parents when I was old enough to enjoy it on my own, though I remember finding the abduction of the otter child strange ("The Piper at the Gates of Dawn") and wasn't crazy about some of Toad's adventures, which seemed to me at the time to be an interruption of the main story: apparently I preferred the furry characters.
Beautiful line drawings and colorplates.
Lucie and I read some/most/all? of this together, which pleased our cat, Finnie. Drawn by the sound of our...more
Beautiful line drawings and colorplates.
Lucie and I read some/most/all? of this together, which pleased our cat, Finnie. Drawn by the sound of our...more
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
add a comment
Read in January, 2003
All the dear little characters -- and Ratty's rowboat -- I had read stories from this but read the real thing while in Belgie. We made twice a year visits to a local kasteel for their garden tours and I have a picture of a green boat its oars shipped and loosely moored to a dock -- I keep the photo on the bookcase where it catches my eye often -- ah, Ratty, wish I could hang about the pond there again. Being as that isn't likely to happen -- I'll revisit Wind in the Willows again one day.
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
add a comment
Read in May, 2008
I forgot how much I loved this book. Previous reviewers I have read seem to find it wordy or cumbersome. Personally, I find it beautifully descriptive. I am currently reading it to my 3 and 4 year old boys at bed time, a half a chapter at a time, and they seem to be enjoying it, as well. No, its not a quick, easy read, but it is worth it for all the lost vocabulary that we see so seldom in modern author's works.
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
1 comments
Just a quiet, charming, beautiful little book about the magic of the woods, the river, the simple pleasures of life, friendship, a little bit of adventure and four of the most wonderful and charming talking animals ever to show up in a book.
One of those books that creates a world that feels so real and so great, you feel a little sad that you can't take your next vacation there.
One of those books that creates a world that feels so real and so great, you feel a little sad that you can't take your next vacation there.
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
3 comments
Read in July, 2007
This is clearly a classic. And I guess I liked it for the most part. I think I would have liked it more if I'd read most of the book in one setting rather than over an entire week.
At several times I laughed out loud at the humor of the characters. I think it's quite amazing how funny the story is for being 100 years old. I wish I would have read this when I was a bit younger.
At several times I laughed out loud at the humor of the characters. I think it's quite amazing how funny the story is for being 100 years old. I wish I would have read this when I was a bit younger.
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
add a comment
Read in January, 2007
I read this to Ada this summer, and she simplied adored the cozy beds, tea times, and fires. I thought Frog's addictive behavior was a bit scandalous for a children's book but laughed at the "intervention" they do to try to break him of his ways. It is certainly a glorification of the life of the colonialist, but endearing all the same.
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
add a comment
Read in November, 2007
Oh, how charming. I'm dissapointed that I waited until adulthood to actually read this book. The story is witty and endearing. The characters are lovable and entertaining. It is a nice blend of silliness and obervations about people thier friendships.
"Poop-poop!"
"Poop-poop!"
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
add a comment
Read in April, 2007
recommends it for:
age 8 and up
Currently reading with my child. We both love it.
Amazing descriptions that are so imaginative. Funny.
Good lessons in friendship. A little hard because of the English authors words that are unfamiliar to Americans.
Like: sniggering, row, etc.
Amazing descriptions that are so imaginative. Funny.
Good lessons in friendship. A little hard because of the English authors words that are unfamiliar to Americans.
Like: sniggering, row, etc.
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
add a comment
Read in January, 2007
Great book for a light read. I remember reading this as a kid, but the writing in it is good enough that I enjoyed it as an adult.
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
add a comment
Read in November, 2008
I picked up this book, because it caught my eye on a library shelf when I was passing by, and because it's a "classic" that I knew I was supposed to have read. I didn't expect much from it, though - partly because I saw some snippets of the Disney movie based on this book, and got rather turned off by them. However, from the first couple of pages I was completely entranced by the beautiful, beautiful language and the endearing (and very well written) characters. I was expecting an &quo...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
"There he got out the luncheon-basket and packed a simple meal, in which, remembering the stranger's origin and preferences, he took care to include a yard of long French bread, a sausage out of which the garlic sang, some cheese which lay down and cried, and a long-necked straw-covered flask wherein lay bottled sunshine shed and garnered on far Southern slopes."
~ from The Wind in the Willows
Oh, it is passages like this one that make it so much fun to read Kenneth Grahame's classic ...more
~ from The Wind in the Willows
Oh, it is passages like this one that make it so much fun to read Kenneth Grahame's classic ...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Has a copy to sell/swap
—
Read in August, 2008
This is not a children's book. I mean, it's not vulgar or anything, but the dialogue is plodding and unwieldy, and the vernacular is foreign and archaic. Also, the characters are pretty adult in their behaviors and I think a child would find it hard to identify with them. As it is, I found it hard to give half a toot for Toad, an arrogant, elitist blowhard who gets himself incarcerated as a result of his fool-hardy, pompous attitude. And he stole a car. Anywho, now I GET "Mr. Toad's Wi...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in August, 2008
This book was a disappointment. Having seen the Disney cartoon and the BYU production of the play, I was familiar with that story, not what was here in the book. Yes some of the events were the same. But the characters in the book are much less likable than they are in the portrayals I have seen. Especially Toad.
Maybe it's because I'm not as familiar with the turn-of-the-century life, but I was a bit surprised by the constant chastisement, rudeness, and name-calling among not just strangers...more
Maybe it's because I'm not as familiar with the turn-of-the-century life, but I was a bit surprised by the constant chastisement, rudeness, and name-calling among not just strangers...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in September, 2002
recommends it for:
People who seek the best in others
What a poorer world this would be without this book! I stumbled upon this book as an adult - I had heard of it, but I lumped it in with all the other inane Disney stories. Then at a childcare site one day, I picked it up and was instantly mesmerized by the sparkling beginning - Mole, desultorily working away at the drudgery of spring-cleaning -suddenly feels a thrill of Spring call to him. He answers, scrabbling up his den entrance, and is brought into the Wide World, with an enchanting riv...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
I've picked up this book a few times over the years, but not for the last decade. I was shocked to see how much I remembered of it, down to Mole's war-cry and Toad, "revolving rapidly" as he's tossed off a barge by a washerwoman.
I think part of this is due to Graham's command of language and visual effect, but I also think that much of this is due to his great attention to creating three-dimensional characters that can never be mistaken for each other. This book is very much a ch...more
I think part of this is due to Graham's command of language and visual effect, but I also think that much of this is due to his great attention to creating three-dimensional characters that can never be mistaken for each other. This book is very much a ch...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
