The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame

I really don't feel as if I have too much to say regarding my reading of The Wind in the Willows which I read as part of the Reading to Know Book Club. Stephanie will be here towards the end of the week sharing her thoughts and kicking off a discussion. I'm here to mumble about something in the meantime.

This is my third or fourth reading of The Wind in the Willows. I read it for the first time in high school. (Hey! Look! I did get to a classic in high school!) Or maybe it was college. At any rate, whenever it was that I first read it I fell in love with the characters of Moley, Ratty, Mr. Badger and Mr. Toad of Toad Hall. For many years I have planned to read this aloud to my kids. Alas, this was not the year.

I sat down with the intent to read this book with the bookworms (age 6 and 4) a few weeks back and it quickly became apparently that the vocabulary put this story beyond their reach. Now, I'm a proponent of expanding children's vocabulary and I'm afraid we dumb down a great many books that they could totally handle if we'd let them try reading them for themselves. (Adapted and abridged Anne of Green Gables!?! What a waste of paper!!!) I suppose I could have applied my "children can handle bigger words than we give them credit for" logic to The Wind in the Willows but with passages such as the following, I wasn't convinced that it wasn't pushing it a bit much:

"Such a rich chapter it had been, when one came to look back on it all! With illustrations so numerous and so very highly coloured! The pageant of the river bank had marched steadily along, unfolding itself in scene-pictures that succeeded each other in stately procession. Purple loose-strife arrived early, shaking luxuriant tangled locks along the edge of the mirror whence its own face laughed back at it. Willow-herb tender and wistful, like a pink sunset cloud, was not slow to follow. Comfrey, the purple hand-in-hand with the white, crept forth to take its place in the line; and at last one morning the diffident and delaying dog-rose stepping delicately no the stage, and one knew, as if string-music had announced it in stately chords that strayed into a gavotte, that June was at least here."

Any one of those words by itself wouldn't have been such a roadblock to us but all jumbled together it is a bit much for youngsters, in my opinion. Yes, I could have made them plough on but their eyes were glazing over in Chapter 1 and I don't want to ruin the story for them in the future. I'd rather set it aside and let them at it when they are ready to handle it, instead of make them think it's boring when it isn't. And so I opted just to read it to myself and I enjoyed it very much.

As it is a familiar classic (I should think to almost everyone) I'll refrain from describing it. Instead I'll close with some silly quizzes which I periodically like to take for no very good reason whatsoever.








Which Wind in the Willows character are you?


this quiz was made by Auntie Krizu

I'm not sure what I think of that since I liked Moley least of everyone this read aloud. I liked Badger best!

Did you read it/have your children read it/read it aloud to your children? Here's a quiz consisting of 15 questions to see how well everyone was paying attention!

And lastly, here is a picture of some people performing a musical version of The Wind in the Willows which I think looks rather creepy.

I'll leave it at that for today.