The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Story

Good-natured Mole makes friends with a rat named Ratty and they live happily by a river. Ratty’s mischevious friend Toad causes lots of trouble and together with their serious friend badger they have to get him out of scrapes. Toad escapes them however and ahs some adventures on his own before returning- and since this is a classic children’s book I don’t think it’s much of a spoiler to say they all lived happily ever after!

My thoughts

At the end of the day this is a book aimed at young children so all the criticisms I have aren’t really fair and are only because I’m reading it as a teenager! But I’ll share my thoughts anyway... I was fine with the animals talking and being intelligent, that’s all well and good... and even animals dressing in human clothes, eating human food including tinned sardines and furnishing their houses...  I can even cope with that- but an animal interacting with humans who don’t bat an eyelid at talking animals and can even be fooled into thinking a toad is actually an old lady- that’s just too far! :P  And since mole being called mole since he is one and toad being  called toad because he is one is just ridiculous- does every other toad and mole have the same name? How confusing! But anyway, my only non jokey criticism is I found that not enough actually happened in this book, there was a lot of dialogue and some chapters exploring emotions which I liked but it just felt like too much of it was very slow paced- although there were some faster moving sections involving toad.

However on the positive side, I loved the characters and they’re really memorable and loveable... mole is so adorable and I even have a soft spot for toad, as conceited as he is- he reminds me a little of someone I know and love actually! I also love how emotions are explored in some of the chapters and prefer these chapters more than those focusing on toad’s adventures.

In a nutshell...

This is wonderful classic children’s book, I would 100% recommend it to anybody 12 or under. If you’re over that age I’d still recommend it, it’s a quick, funny read that could take you back to your childhood J It’s obviously not aimed at you and you’ll have to get past the talking animals but you may find you enjoy it- I did!

Heathere xx