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 animals aren't the sort that I would have considered cute as a kid -- a mole, a rat, a toad, and a badger? A cat or a dog would have been more my type. Even as I enjoyed the book, I found myself laughing at the idea of Mole and Rat having chicken or fried ham and later boating down the river while dressed in their finery. When I remarked to my fiancé about the absurdities of such things, he'd say, "Of course! What do you expect? They're English!"

But what really endeared me to this book were the relationships between the characters. The animals are so much more human than humans themselves, and when one of them makes a mistake or acts impetuous, the others are generous and forgiving in nature. For instance, when Mole decides to ignore Rat's advice or warning and gets himself and Rat into a mess, Rat is so gentle with Mole and so careful of his already remorseful feelings that you can feel the love and friendship between them. It made me love them both.

And really, these creatures are so much more forgiving of faults than I ever would be. Toad, the worst of them all when it comes to human faults, is the most exasperating and most incorrigible character, and yet time and time again, his friends stick by him and try to help get him out of the messes he gets himself into. These animals are like angels in that respect.

On top of the character relationships is the beautiful, lyrical writing -- visually descriptive and evocative of nature poetry and landscape paintings. Before reading this, I had sort of written this off as a typical children's book, but the language doesn't in any way talk down to the reader; rather, it elevates with a rich vocabulary and complex, yet still easy to read, sentences.