The Wind in the Willows

Written by Kenneth Grahame

Narrated by David Thorn and Full Cast

Since publication in 1908, The Wind in the Willows has established itself as one of the most popular children's books ever written.

Rat, Toad, Mole, Badger are emotional, vibrant and fully realized characters with their own share of flaws and virtues. They become loyal friends and meet strange and wonderful characters along their journey.

The magical fantasy starts on the river bank and goes to the heights of Toad Hall, a truly fine mansion of many secret passages. All children will delight and be taken away on the wings of imagination.

Table of Contents
Chapter 01: The River Bank
Chapter 02: The Open Road
Chapter 03: The Wild Wood
Chapter 04: Mr. Badger
Chapter 05: Dulce Domum
Chapter 06: Mr. Toad
Chapter 07: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
Chapter 08: Toad'S Adventures
Chapter 09: Wayfarers All
Chapter 10: The Further Adventures Of Toad
Chapter 11: "Like Summer Tempests Came His Tears"
Chapter 12: The Return Of Ulysses

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alcazar Audio Works
• Release date: Jan 1, 2003
• ISBN: 9780972499545

Kenneth Grahame

Kenneth Grahame (1859-1932) was a Scottish author of children’s literature. Following the death of his mother at a young age, Grahame was sent to live with his grandmother in Berkshire, England, in a home near the River Thames. Unable to study at Oxford due to financial reasons, Grahame embarked on a career with the Bank of England, eventually retiring to devote himself to writing. An early exposure to nature and wildlife formed a lasting impression on Grahame, who would return to the Thames Valley of his youth throughout his literary career—most notably in his novel The Wind in the Willows (1908), which is considered his finest achievement and a masterpiece of children’s fiction.

Reviews for The Wind in the Willows

[bwatso12 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The moral of the story is that friends are important and you shouldn’t let small things tear you apart. One thing I disliked about this book was the very long run on sentences, ”First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes , and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur , and an aching back and weary arms.” When sentences are this long it makes it difficult for readers to follow. One thing I liked about this story this story was the detail and development of the characters; because of this the readers are about to envision details of all of the characters even though there aren’t any pictures, “Working buisily with his little paws…his snout came up to the warm sunlight….the sun struck on his soft fur…his heated brow.”

[lord_boris-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The Wind in the Willows is an odd book in that it is meant for children yet has chapter titles such as "Dulce Domum", "Like Summer Tempests Came His Tears", "The Return of Ulysses" and most famously "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn". Some of these chapters are stand alone with only a few threads of plot to interconnect them. In fact there is very little plot as the book is about friendship and maintaining the status quo. It's a very conservative book. I read it last forty years ago and can remember as a child being confused but somehow affected by The Piper at the Gates of Dawn chapter. Reading it as an adult, it is clearly the best part of the book. Still dislike Toad though.

[dulac3_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Ok, second attempt at a review after the damn interwebs ate my last one. Luckily I’m composing this one offline first.

To me Kenneth Grahame’s _The Wind in the Willows_ is a particularly fine novel. It’s a children’s story and normally that would get my back up. I’m generally not a big fan of children’s lit or YA, and to add to this I didn’t even read this book as a child and thus have the requisite rose-coloured glasses to lend credence to my love for the story. Somehow, however, this tale of the adventures of four animal friends in an idealized and idyllic Edwardian English countryside resonated deeply with me. I think part of this has to do with the deft hand Grahame shows in the creation of his characters: shy amiable Mole, courageous and resolute Ratty (that’s Water Rat by the bye), gruff but stalwart Badger and, last but certainly not least, frivolous and vain Toad, all partake of elements of archetype and yet are never fully defined by it, they manage to emerge as characters in their own right. The setting too seems to straddle the line between generic and specific. The animal friends are constantly travelling against a background whose very names are emblematic: the River, the Wildwood, the Town and yet when we come to their homes we could not wish to find more congenial or personal places of the heart.

Our tale (or perhaps I should say tales) begins as the shy Mole first pokes his nose out from his underground home to be presented with a newly discovered wider world he approaches with awe and wonder. I wouldn’t quite say that Mole is the main character of the stories that follow (though he is always a significant part of them), but I’ve always had a soft spot for him and enjoy seeing Grahame’s idealized English meadows, woods and countryside through his amiable eyes. Toad would probably be the more likely candidate, certainly for a good portion of the stories which concentrate on his adventures: a life-loving jester of a character with more money than brains always looking out for the next fad that is of course the fulfillment of his true heart’s desire…yet again. Indeed, keeping tabs on their friend and trying to hammer some good animal sense into his soft head is one of the major tasks the other characters must undertake in many of these tales. Grahame’s pacing is excellent, at times meandering with a leisurely pace from a boating foray on the River to spring-cleaning a much-loved home, and at others moving at breakneck speed to escape from prison or reclaim an ancestral home from dangerous enemies. Thus we follow our friends as they learn about their world and each other and I cannot say that there are many more enjoyable companions to be had for such a venture.

I’ve seen arguments online that these stories are somewhat parochial and insular: whenever the world outside of the hedgerows intrudes it is usually either a dangerous temptation or a destructive force. I can’t really argue with this, but does all literature need to celebrate the novel and the strange? Isn’t there a place for the well-loved hearth and a joyous homecoming? _The Wind in the Willows_ is nothing if not a celebration of the comfortable and the familiar, a paen for a world and a type of beauty fading away. There may be good reasons for why it had to die out, but I would argue that there is still value in remembering it. When I try to put my finger on what it is about this book that so captures my imagination and elevates it from being merely a tale about talking animals within the context of a long-dead worldview I think that Christopher Milne, son of the author of _Winnie the Pooh_, may have said it best when he talked of “those chapters that explore human emotions – the emotions of fear, nostalgia, awe, wanderlust.” It is these parts of the book that speak directly to my heart and examine the wider aspects of the human spirit.

[johnthefireman · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A beautiful children's book which, like so many really good children's books, is still of great interest to adults.

[cygnus555 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

As I child, I tried to read this book several times. Each time, I made it about 1/2 a chapter in and I was bored to tears and stopped. But I kept being drawn back to it for two reasons. 1) It had animals in it and I found that appealing. 2) Disneyland's Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. Come on... a ride like that had to come from a great book!!So I'm now an adult and I'm walking through Borders and I see it on a discount rack. I grab it with the same instinct - knowing it must be a good book. This time, I made it past the first chapter. Midway through Chapter Two, I was hooked.What a beautifully written book. it was absolutely magical and eloquently written. I could just read some of the paragraphs and chapters over and over. My particular favorites were Dulce Domum, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn and Wayfarers All. These are some of the best writing I have read in a long time. The end was a bit of an off trajectory from the rest of the book... but still fun - a little more like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.... funny though, now that I'm an adult I wasn't as attracted to this aspect. It was the beauty of the chapters noted above.But I do want to go to Disneyland again, just to experience it from a knowing perspective...

[sdpugh_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Classic novel for the older elementary age students, who enjoy stories where animals come to life and take on human characteristics. A good book to teach adverbs and how to use your imagination to write a story.

[jculkin-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There is a brilliant book here - absolutely whimsical childlike adventuring brilliance! Unfortunately a lot of rubbish got mixed up with it somehow. For a vastly improved reading experience read these chapters:

Chapter 1 - The River Bank
Chapter 2 - The Open Road
Chapter 3 - The Wild Wood
Chapter 4 - Mr. Badger
Chapter 5 - Dulce Domum
Chapter 9 - Wayfarers All
Chapter 7 - The Piper at the Gates of Dawn

This pretty much cuts out Toad, and ends on the highest of notes. I'm really pretty sore about reading all the crappy adventures of Toad, but I did love the rest. I had better come back in a year, follow my own advice and review again

[redfiona_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I've known the story of The Wind In The Willows forever, one of those things that seeps in in the time before memory begins, but on the other hand I have no memory of ever having read the book.And it is wonderful.Warm and clever and lovely, and touched by some sort of magic.It's all the little things like Mole feeling so much more at home in Badger's sett, because he's an underground animal at heart, but loving the river enough to forego that. And Ratty being lovely, and kind and ... Ratty is my favourite. And, it must be said, has been since I was wee.Completely and utterly worth reading, no matter how old you are.

[rbeffa_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I suppose I was in the mood for this book, but it was a sheer delight and it immediately became a favorite book. My copy has an introduction and afterword, as well as a brief author bio written by Jane Yolen which I really appreciated. We only have a small cast of central characters here, a mole, a water rat, a badger and a toad, 'Mr. Toad'. I adore Mole and Ratty. I found myself loving every one of them, maybe even Mr. Toad. This is a children's book for grown-ups as well as mid aged kids. When I got to chapter 7, titled "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" my mouth dropped open. My copy only has a few illustrations in it - lovely black and white drawings, and the artist is not credited, although I think I deciphered the name Zimic. Then I decided that artist Tricia Zimic created the delightful cover illustration as well as the interior pen and ink drawings.I much more partial to the early half of the book, the rather nostalgic, pastoral adventures of Mole, Rat and Badger as well as the Piper piece in the middle. As Jane Yolen notes, this is really three sorts of stories in one book.

[heathersblue · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I'm still thinking of this novel and the various levels of enjoyment encountered. Mole and Water Rat have a kind of friendship only dreamt of...it is like an ideal form of male bounding whee everything is okay with everyone and everyone works calmly towards the best interest of each other.Why you should read it, however, can be boiled down to one single scene with Toad and a pretend car made of chairs. If you've read it, you know the one!

[davidgraves_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I think I read this timeless adventure on five occasions as a child. . .Magical and often under-rated, Mr Grahame cleverly explores the meaning of friendship and the carprice of the upperclasses; depicting an idyllic era in England that was about to change forever with the advent of World War One. Much adapted in the modern era, the original story and illustrations by E H Shepard (the only ones approved by Mr Grahame) are by far the most satisfying.

[john5918 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A beautiful children's book which, like so many really good children's books, is still of great interest to adults.

[librarylou · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A charming story of Ratty, Mole, Badger and Mr Toad, and the adventures they have together. One of the best children's books ever written.

[kelsieh.g3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book was charming the first time I read it. My Language arts teacher assained this book to read for class, I remember reading ahead and just smiling at Mole, River rat, Otter and Badger. Truthfully the first few sentences bored me a bit bit until I began to read the entire chapter. The story begins with a gentle lull and eventually captures the reader's attention. Mole is a loveable character, a bit like a child-minded gentleman. He reminds me of a hobbit in this book, his young mind is extremely captating when you first meet him. Ratty's attitute keeps the reader tuned in to find out what happens next. I highly suggest this book to people with larger vocabularies and a taste for countryside adventure.Mole is a normal everyday gentleman with a passion for housekeeping and tea time. One day he is spring cleaning and gets tired of it, he longs for adventure! Mole sets off across the country and runs into a River rat named Ratty. Ratty and Mold become fast friends and travel the world together, they meet new friends such as Toad, Badger and Weasle. Toad is a spoiled young lad who believes money is the answer to everything. Badge is a bit like the father of the bunch. The friends wander around England until they discover a plot against Toad's riches, they have to work together, even if they don't get along, to help their friend Toad, but the question is, how?

[heathereb_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Another favourite from my childhood - starting to look a little twee now, but still love it!

[laviniarossetti · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Ratty, Mole and Badger become great friends when they meet at the riverbank, and in the Wild Wood. But it seems impossible to them to keep close friendships with Toad, the owner of the great Toad Hall. He does not understand the traditional culture of peaceful animals, and goes against the rules entirely - it's up to the three 'normal' animals to bring him back to the good-natured animal he used to be.

He comes up with random likings to completely different things - once, he went on about boats, and a few days later, forgot all about them and whenever they were mentioned said what utter badness they caused and were. But this time, he has taken a liking to motor cars, and he steals and robs them, and when he does, drives them terrifically horribly.

Ending up in prison and in even more trouble than when he was driving about in the motor car, Toady was upset and missed his beautiful Toad Hall. And even when he escapes with the gaoler's daughter, he returns to the mansion to find that it has been taken over by the evil stoats and weasels!

It's up to him, Ratty, Mole and Badger to get it back for Toad. And when they do, will he turn to that ordinary young Toady he so used to be?

Goes on a bit, I suppose; but then, it uses good words and phrases, unlike the modern-day books, which are filled not with, '"Come, Moly, let us take back the Hall! Toady, you should know better!"', but with, 'She still looked stunningly beautiful.' and that sort of thing. Still, I would rather it didn't have so much description-this-description-that.

[pmaranci_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is one of the most lovely, funny, and beautiful books that I have ever read. I've been reading and re-reading it since I was quite young, and it always leaves me wanting more. Mole, Rat, Badger, and especially the ingenious and inimitable Mr. Toad are a perfect fusion of temperaments, quirks, strengths, and weaknesses. An odd shifting of tone from one chapter to the next nonetheless works perfectly, a rare alchemy that would have (and often has) turned leaden in the hands of a lesser author.

But I won't be reviewing the book in great detail here. Instead, here's how Sebastian, my seven-year-old son, reacted to the story.

I have to admit that I was worried that the book might be too advanced for him. And at first, my fears seemed prophetic: the story didn't seem to interest him very much, and he often asked to read something else (or read one of his own books to me). I had carefully picked an unabridged edition (TWitW is often abridged, with "The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn" chapter being the most frequent casualty), but I found myself abridging the book on the fly. The language is truly lovely, but at Sebastian's age some of the longer descriptive passages just don't work.

After struggling to read it to him for several weeks ("Dad, let's read something else tonight!") I picked up the book with the private resolution that if Sebastian didn't get more interested in it that night, I'd return it to the library and wait a year before trying again.

And then Mole decided to make a private trek into the Wild Wood to meet Badger.

I'd forgotten how frightening that section was! It's like a ghost story. Sebastian was riveted. From that point on, he was captivated; he even had me bring it in the car, so I could read it to him on the way to the train station (my wife was driving, of course).

It took me a little while to work out the voices. Mole's is nasal and high, a bit like Terry Jones' when he's playing a silly part in Monty Python (ironically, Jones played Toad in a movie adaptation of the book, I believe). Rat is more mellifluous and a bit, well, educated; I keep thinking of "the playing fields of Eaton" when I'm reading him (not the actual fields, mind you; I've never seen them. I'm thinking of the phrase.)

Badger is more gruff, deep, and direct (I think of Ed Asner's Lou Grant, but as a Brit). For Otter, I think of a British athlete, a "jock" type; cheerful, casual, and strong; a bit like Hugh Laurie, for some reason (obviously not when he's playing House).

I should note that I'm NOT particularly trying to do British accents; I'm just letting the voices in my head shade the voices as I read them. So a tinge of accent creeps in, so to speak.

Toad is the one character who gave me trouble. Eventually I decided that since Toad gets the best lines, and has the most emotional moments, I might as well use something close to my own voice - but pitched just a little higher, and with just a touch of melodrama. Toad is quite a ham, after all.

For a seven-year-old, Toad is clearly the favorite of the book. That "his" chapters alternate with other ones was sometimes a small problem - but even so, during (for example) the Toad-free "Dulce Domum" chapter in which Mole's nose and heart are temporarily recaptured by the smells of his old home (a truly heartrending scene) Sebastian's interest remained strong enough to carry him through to the next chapter.

Without question, the high point comes in Chapter X, "The Further Adventures of Toad". Toad's incredibly funny song, his escapes and adventures, his highs and lows are all perfect grist for the child reader/listener (and for the parent who loves reading dramatically to their child, for that matter).

The final two chapters cap the book off perfectly. Any properly bloodthirsty child will revel in the passages in which piles of pistols, swords, and cudgels are amassed for each animal to use in the battle to come. Tiptoeing along the secret passage, the battle itself...this is the sort of thing children love, when it's well-told. And it is perfectly written here.

I will confess that the reform of Toad is not quite believable (Sebastian confidently told me that Toad would not stay reformed). And the ending comes just a little too quickly. I have always wished as soon as I finished the book that there was more - and so did Sebastian. I know that sequels have been written by some modern-day author; I tried to read one of them, but at the time it didn't quite work for me. Some day, perhaps, I'll try it again...but maybe not. It would be more rewarding to simply re-read The Wind in the Willows once again.

[bell7_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Somewhere alongside a river lives a Water Rat and a Mole, two friends who take pleasure in the simple things, like taking a ride in Ratty's boat and having a picnic. Their friends Toad, Otter and Badger, living near the river and in the Wide Wood, join them in various adventures throughout the seasons.Somehow, when I was young and reading The Chronicles Narnia and all the Thornton W. Burgess tales, I missed this children's classic featuring Mole and the Water Rat, pompous old Toad and the sturdy Badger. I especially loved Toad, his faddish delights and mood swings from deepest despair to puffed up self-display. This was a truly charming read, by turns familiar (due to a movie I saw as a child) and new. The episodic chapters and long, meandering sentences lend themselves to a read-aloud, and I look forward to someday sharing this story with a young child.

[viviennestrauss · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I really wanted to love this book. It started off well, but it just started feeling like a chore to read. With just another 50 pages to read, I can't get motivated to finish. Was there some reason why there weren't any female animals/characters?

[briarthorn · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

As a child at had one chapter of this book that had great illustrations, I always liked the art more then the story of toad stealing a car. Probably because it lacked the context of the rest of the book. When I saw it for free on my kindle I decided to get it a read. A very enjoyable book even for an adult.

[atimco-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Kenneth Grahame's classic children's novel, The Wind in the Willows, is the story of a friendship, a picnic, an encounter with the divine, a daring impersonation, a jail-break, a secret passage, a battle, and any number of motorcars. It combines at once the fantasy imagination of a bank secretary and the comforts of a well-off British home, peopled by a collection of memorable animal characters whose foibles continue to delight readers of all ages. At least, they delighted this reader!As I read it this time, I was struck by how much it reminded me of C. S. Lewis's Narnia books. Grahame's tone is the closest to Lewis's that I've ever read: genial, oh-so-British, and wonderfully humorous (as when Mole "had started his spring-cleaning at a very early hour that morning; as people will do" (34)). There are also religious/spiritual undertones that occasionally come quite sharply to the forefront, but somehow never jar the tenor of the stories. The presence of the divine is a natural feature of the imaginative landscape of both worlds. Both Willows and Narnia are home to humanized animal characters who reflect all the ideas and mindsets of their creators. And yet these characters are faithful to the quirks of their species as well. I love the part in Willows when it is explained to us that animal etiquette demands that one should never comment on the sudden disappearance of another animal for any reason at all.Of course, Willows was published in 1908, while the Narnia books appeared in 1950–1957. So all my perceptions of Grahame being like Lewis are backwards; really it's Lewis who was influenced by Grahame (in his Poems, Lewis refers to some of Grahame's characters by name). Lewis was by far the most prominent author in my own childhood and so remains the standard by which I measure other similar works, but there is always room for more kindred-spirited literature among my favorites.Another fascinating fantasy connection I noticed—or imagined, anyways—is actually related to J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, in the invasion of the comfortable little British home and how physical force, actual pitched battle, is necessary to rout the intruders. Go adventuring, by all means, but your safe home may not be yours when you return...Though I alluded earlier to the classic status of The Wind in the Willows, I think Grahame is underrated both as an author and as an influence on the British children's authors who would follow him. At least, he was to me before this reread. This is an utterly delightful book that fully deserves its place among the very best of children's literature. And, like its company, it is just as delightful to adult readers as it is to younger. I'm already wanting to reread!

[stpnwlf · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Wonderful children's classic.

[librisissimo · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Substance: The story of two friends never gets old, and I love the chapter where they discover Mole's old home. However, be warned that the book is full of antiquated notions. Toad is only part of the story.Style: Not too dated yet.

[eurekas_5 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Absolutely Marvelous!

[shanaqui_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

My copy is actually a hardback with beautiful illustrations. I always found this fun, though I preferred the early chapters to the end.

[jakegest · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is one of the many long lost books of my childhood that I no longer recalled, but remembered enjoying. It was a pleasure to re-visit the tale. I found it somewhat ironic that a silly children's story about talking animals displayed such an intricate understanding of human emotion and relationships. All in all a fun read, with incredibly endearing characters. I could blather on and on about the book, but really all I can say is I am rather fond of it.

[shelf3employed · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was my favorite book when I was a child. When I read it years later to my own children, I still loved it, and they did too!

[becalee · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The first novel my father bought me. Read it for the first time as an adult. It is without doubt my favourite book of all time. Grahame is a master. Should be read every Christmas.

[tadad_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Though easily read by the young, this book should be just as relevant for adults. I cannot say it better than A. A. Milne: "One does not argue about The Wind in the Willows...The book is a test of character. We cannot criticize it, because it is criticizing us...a book which is read aloud to every new guest and is regarded as the touchstone of his worth."

[rbeene-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A fun book, but I have not read it in years.