The Wind in the Willows does NOT blow only on children. This is as much for adults as for their chronologically inferior doppelgangers, though unfaithful film and television adaptations have turned the collective preudice against a full-grown readership. Too many themes in this beautifully written novel go over the heads of small kids—and even teenagers—for it to be just for them. And Mr. Toad, much to the chagrin of modern interpreters, does change, just not in the way many readers might expect. This is one of the best books written in English in the last 150 years, too long neglected by parents and kids, and too often seen as only a fantasy story rather than the deep reflection on the values of life that it actually is.
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