Book review: The Wind in the Willows

The Wind in the Willows is an old children's book that I have never read before. My copy comes from Joan Procter (given to her "From Granny, aug 18th 1929"), but it has taken me ages to get round to reading it. I liked it.

As usual there's no reason to describe it; you'll find it elsewhere. It is really a collection of tales told to a child, perhaps polished up to hang together, although some bits fit less well... Pan at dawn is perhaps more of a poem or picture than a story. That the stoats and weasels are the villains is unfortunate but at least they get a place in the story.

The animals are of course all anthropomorphised and at times that is odd: Toad for example combs his hair. And they must be about the size of humans, too: but really you're just not supposed to think of that. In most ways they aren't really animals at all; they are country-dwelling folk of various types and strata, who happen to have animal nick-names.

Physically, the book is a blue-covered hardback with gold lettering (title, author, house) on the spine and the author on the cover. There is gold on the top side of the pages only. The pages are roughly cut and not square at the bottom; this is quite charming. There are no illustrations.