The Wind in the Willows

by Kenneth Grahame
The Wind in the Willows
book data
6,365 ratings, 3.95 average rating, 519 reviews (more data...)
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published
July 26th 2005 (first published 1908) by Penguin Classics

binding
Hardcover, 240 pages

setting
The United Kingdom

isbn
0143039091    (isbn13: 9780143039099)

description
When Kenneth Grahame first entertained his son with letters about a petulant character named Toad, he had no way of knowing that his creation—together...more




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Chris
04/21/07
Chris added it

bookshelves: abandoned
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
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  2 comments

Anthony D.
bookshelves: literature, politics
Read in January, 1954
This bood was written in 1908, when the world was being shaken by the newly self-confident masses. Women were propagandising for the vote; the Irish were demanding Home Rule; the Trade Unions were showing their strength. Socialism theatened. A spectre was haunting Europe, and particularly England.

Wind in the Willows is an elegant parable about class struggle, about the dangers of decadant country-house-living in the face of powerful revolutionary forces.

There are may...more
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Nathan
05/07/08
Nathan rated it: 5 of 5 stars

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
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  2 comments

Kimmie
05/01/08
Kimmie rated it: 4 of 5 stars (review of isbn 1855014092)

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.
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  1 comment

Wayne
11/24/08
Wayne rated it: 5 of 5 stars (review of isbn 0416195687)

bookshelves: children-s-books, re-reads
Read in January, 1961
recommended to Wayne by: compulsory reading in second year of High School
recommends it for: the child in us all
LATER:
Hard to let go of a book like this especially when the illustrations so mirror the text.
Such lovable characters in humble Mole, caring and indulgent Ratty, and the daunting but fatherly Badger, except it is difficult to warm to the deceitful and conceited Toad whose transformation is scarely credible, but he supplies so much fun and absurd adventures that one wants to believe!!
The rest of the book is about friendship and shared moments, home and hearth, the urge to trav...more
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  4 comments

Carrie
12/22/07
Carrie rated it: 5 of 5 stars

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 infu...more
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  4 comments

Rhiannon
bookshelves: children-s-literature
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 ...more
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  1 comment

Laurie
01/16/09
Laurie is currently reading it

bookshelves: currently-reading
"The real way to travel... The only way to travel! O bliss! O poop-poop!... What carts I shall fling into the ditch! Horrid carts-- common carts-- canary-coloured carts!.... Me complain of that beautiful, heavenly vision! That swan, that sunbeam, that thunderbolt!"

--Frog on automobiles
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Ron
09/11/08
Ron rated it: 4 of 5 stars

bookshelves: fantasy, general-fiction, young
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 the...more
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Lisbeth
bookshelves: fauna, twice-read-and-more
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 ...more
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Peter
03/18/09
Peter rated it: 5 of 5 stars (review of isbn 1593082657)

Read in March, 2009
recommends it for: anyone
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
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  1 comment

Edipalma
01/13/09
Edipalma rated it: 5 of 5 stars

This is a book I reread frequently. Technically it's a children's book, but
has been a touchstone for me, and many other grown-ups!

The characters are all animals - Mole, Toad, Ratty, Badger & others —
who retain their intrinsic animal characteristics while being anthropomorphised: they row boats, make tea, wear clothes, drive cars etc.

There is humor, danger, combat and friendship. Tea is drunk, battles are fought, the friends come to each others aid in times...more
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Crowgirl
12/16/08
Crowgirl rated it: 5 of 5 stars

bookshelves: old-reads
A beautiful review at:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2008...

>>>
Dec. 16, 2008 | There are certain books that become a permanent part of your life, like an old tree that stands at the bend of a favorite path. You may not notice them, but if they were taken away, the world would be less mysterious, less friendly, less itself.

"The Wind in the Willows," published 100 years ago this year, is one of those books. I first read Kenneth Grahame's c...more
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Dottie
bookshelves: 1967-1997, own
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.
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April
05/22/09
April rated it: 5 of 5 stars (review of isbn 0553213687)

Read in May, 2009
I've had my copy for as long as I can remember, and I've never read it until now. Having just read it, though, I honestly don't know why I put it off for so long. It is the sweetest, cutest book I've read in a long while and actually so much more mature and insightful of the human character than I would have imagined it.

I think I put it off because the main characters are anthropomorphized animals, and even as a child I never really went for that sort of thing. On top of that, the an...more
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Joseph
bookshelves: post-college-reading
Read in April, 2009
It reads like a structural map of the basic attitudes of forest creatures and their adventures to the later English writer's, Brian Jacques's, Redwall series.

I also took note of the basic inconsistencies in the animal/human realities. Toad being mistaken for a washerwoman and having hair, and driving a car, and chasing a horse, and so on. This inconsistency was imaginative of course, and most often delightful. However at times the Arcadia in which the animals lived seemed cheape...more
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Travis
04/15/08
Travis rated it: 5 of 5 stars

bookshelves: classics
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.
Like this review?   yes   (1 person liked it)
  3 comments

Mike
06/25/07
Mike rated it: 3 of 5 stars

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.
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Susan
03/26/09
Susan rated it: 3 of 5 stars (review of isbn 1598189468)

Read in March, 2009
I'd never read it before. It's charming and lovely in places, though it could use some better worldbuilding. As time goes on, animals seem to be more and more like humans. Everyone seems to be animal-sized until they actually interact with humans, and then they seem to be human-sized. And yet at least one human keeps pets as a hobby, and we won't ask how that works. Mr. Toad combs leaves out of his hair. Anyone can be mistaken for a woman just by dressing up as one and taunting people.
...more
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Heather
02/16/09
Heather rated it: 3 of 5 stars

bookshelves: read-alouds
Read in February, 2009
I read this before reading it to the kids, and I probably won't read it to the kids. Well, I might read an abridged version (shocking I know).

I enjoyed the book for the most part but it wasn't fantastic. At times it felt slow and wordy and sort of like Anne of Green Gables where you just want the author to hurry up with the story. It was funny and I liked the characters although they do use the word 'a@*' entirely too much. They are also a bit rude to Toad at times and I'm not su...more
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The Wind in the Willows (Young Classics)
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