The Wind in the Willows: Illustrated Edition (Union Square Kids Illustrated Classics)

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Six episodes from 28April to 9June 1983, BBC Schools Radio, Living Language series. With Paul Darrow as Badger. It combines a love of nature with a nostalgia for boats, caravans and old cars, and hints at a more innocent time. I’ve loved it since I was ten and never tired of it’ The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, a 1949 animated adaptation produced by Walt Disney Productions for RKO Radio Pictures, narrated by Basil Rathbone. One half of the animated feature was based on the unrelated short story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. for me, this story was a little reminiscent of Watership Down, but much less intense and a lot more fun! Annie Gauger and Brian Jacques released The Annotated Wind in the Willows in 2009, published by W. W. Norton, as part of the Norton Annotated Series. ISBN 978-0-393-05774-4

One summer day, Rat and Mole disembark near the grand Toad Hall and pay a visit to Toad. Toad is rich, jovial, friendly, and kindhearted, but sometimes arrogant and rash; he regularly becomes obsessed with current fads, only to abandon them abruptly. His current craze is his horse-drawn caravan. When a passing car scares his horse and causes the caravan to overturn into a ditch, Toad's craze for caravan travel is immediately replaced by an obsession with motorcars. The novel is a series of episodes, in twelve chapters; each in a way complete in themselves, and each varying a lot in its style and pace. Some are adventure stories, full of camaraderie; some are humorous interludes, often with a little moral lesson. Some are thrilling, and full of excitement; some far more contemplative, and beautifully evocative of the English countryside. And two chapters in particular, chapter 5, “Dulce Domum” about an animal’s instinct for home, and chapter 7, “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn”, about the great god Pan, are mystical, and very strange. Aspects of and references to the novel are to be found in unlikely places; “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn”, is also the name of Pink Floyd’s first album in 1967. One reason for this is that it is not just a collection of moral tales, but also an exciting adventure. Kenneth Grahame’s characters love adventures. In common with Victorian and Edwardian gentlemen, those from this class do not work. Instead they go on visits, take boats out on the river, go for long picnics, and enjoy the open air and Nature. Both they and we therefore as a consequence appreciate the beauty of Nature through exploration. Toad takes his road trips, home-loving Mole explores the Wild Wood on his own, and even Rat, thoroughly settled in his riverbank home, is momentarily tempted to setting out for an ocean life, at the end of the season. Each of the main characters is subject to the lure of adventure.gesticulating wildly and shouting, “Stop, stop, stop!”“I’ve heard that song before,” said Toad, laughing, as he As a young man in his 20s, Kenneth Grahame was a contemporary and friend of Oscar Wilde. Although married, and having a home in Berkshire, during the week he shared a London home with the painter and theatre set designer, Walford Graham Robertson. Both were very involved with the gay community, whose leading light at the time was Oscar Wilde. Another connection with the gay community was through Constance Smedley, a family friend who helped with the publication of The Wind in the Willows. A year later she was to marry the artist Maxwell Armfield, who himself was gay. But now when I read it as an adult, the lines have so much more to deliver. The story is more meaningful and it gave me lots of things to think about.

The protagonists, our incorrigible and exasperating toad, the loyal and responsible friends, the water rat and ever-gadding mole, and finally our revered badger. The 1927 edition illustrated by Wyndham Payne was noted for its use of a distinctive colour of yellow, described by some cultural commentators as canary yellow.

The Wind in the Willows – Illustrated by Arthur Rackham

It's about the forest adventures of the comrades rat and mole, luncheons, dinner parties, forest gala setting and hubbub, the vanity and conceited adventures of Mr. Toad and the sagacity of our revered Badger. All are gallivanting around in the forest, a pure joyride!

Nothing seems really to matter, that's the charm of it. Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to do, and you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not." The song "Power Flower" on Stevie Wonder's 1979 album Stevie Wonder's Journey Through "The Secret Life of Plants", co-written with Michael Sembello, mentions "the piper at the gates of dawning". For a moment, they just look at each other. A STOAT tries to take advantage of their inattention to sneak up on them from behind, but TOAD grabs a carving knife from the dining table and wittily disembowels him.]

Twelve-part reading by Bernard Cribbins from 22December 1983 to 6January 1984, BBC channel unknown. How can they eat meat? It seems like all animals are intelligent beings in this book so how can they bear to eat ham and sausages? Perhaps the tasty animals don't count...