The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth GrahameMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
So you've begun to get really busy at work and you're feeling stressed out.
Then you watched The Sixth Sense (by yourself, after dark) so you can discuss it on a podcast.
And finally, you just know you're going to have nightmares and possibly be afraid of the dark if you wake up having to make that trip out of bed ... based on the last time you watched that darned movie.
What do you do?
What DO you do?
You pull out your trusty copy of The Wind in the Willows, that's what.
This gentle, imaginative tale of small animals who straddle both animal and human behavior in the most charming way will pull you in and have you thinking of Rat's splendid picnic basket, Badger's den beneath the Wild Woods, or Toad's way of being infuriating while his friends love him anyway. It pulled me into that fantasy world as a child and does so again when I read it as an adult.
Highly recommended (after all Teddy Roosevelt can't be wrong ... and this book has his letter to the author in the introduction).
“One does not argue about The Wind in the Willows. The young man gives it to the girl with whom he is in love, and, if she does not like it, asks her to return his letters. The older man tries it on his nephew, and alters his will accordingly. The book is a test of character. We can't criticize it, because it is criticizing us. But I must give you one word of warning. When you sit down to it, don't be so ridiculous as to suppose that you are sitting in judgment on my taste, or on the art of Kenneth Grahame. You are merely sitting in judgment on yourself. You may be worthy: I don't know, But it is you who are on trial.”
ReplyDelete― A.A. Milne
Precisely! :-)
ReplyDeleteMilne's introduction is in that edition also. And I couldn't agree more.