Anyone not love Wind in the Willows?

[Indian summer]

I'm reading it aloud now and we are on chapter five and its certainly charming, but the kids are finding it boring. Does it get better as it goes or is it just more of the same? Either way, we will be sticking with it because I want to know how it ends but at this point, the kids could care less.

 

I see lots of love for it here on the forums, after doing a search for it, but so far, I'm not seeing why.

 

So if you love it, why do you love it? I don't mind spoilers. Or are there others like my kids that just find it terribly snore worthy?

 

ETA we've read oodles of classics over the years, so it isn't that my kids aren't used to it...

[Terabith]

Me.  I can't stand it. 

 

My daughter listened to it on librivox and liked it, though. 

[Ellie]

Tried to like it. Failed.

[marbel]

We don't have fond memories of it. 

[MEmama]

Snore worthy for us, too. I think we managed to get about halfway through before giving up. It did not get better or more interesting for either of us, and it was a relief to return it to the library. My son might have cheered. :)

[Kathryn]

I hated it. I've not said that out loud yet. We listened to it on audiobook. I would not have been able to finish it if I were reading it.

[EKS]

I've read it aloud twice and I liked it quite a bit more the second time around. 

 

 

[TracyP]

I started reading it aloud, and I didn't care for it. The kids liked it, so they finished it on audiobook. I will probably give it another try with my younger crew.

[LucyStoner]

My son hated it for the first half and liked it ok for the second half but it's not a book he would ever pick up again to reread.

[Indian summer]

Same here. And using MCT's annotated guide was helpful. I came to appreciate things about it that I didn't appreciate the first time around. But it also makes me think that it isn't really a young children's story. Except for talking animals, I think what is special about it isn't at the level of understanding of most young children.

I had this feeling about it before reading it, so I waited until my kids were a bit older. I thought my 13 y/o would love it - he's very good at lit analysis for his age. He's the one complaining the loudest right now, but he's pointing out some literary devices. I do love that aspect of it.

[madteaparty]

Yes. Me. I actually hated it so much as a read aloud. Both DS and I got so fatigued from it we quit with only about 1/3 of the book left. Read-aloud at night is supposed to be fun, and this was not at all.

 

Thanks OP for asking. I feel like this book is the Holy Grail w/r/t recommended book lists for homeschoolers. I realize now with certain things homeschooling, we just do not fit the pattern. To summarize: No one here is gifted, "interest-led learning" is a nice theory, and Wind in the Willows was a bust. Whew, that felt great ;)

[idnib]

We love it now but I started too young. DS didn't enjoy it until recently and he's almost 10. I'm glad I waited a couple of years and tried again. DD, who's 5 doesn't really like it but I'll try again with her later. So maybe put it away and try in a year or two. I'm glad I didn't give up.

[gingersmom]

I didn't like it I loved it!!

 

So did my son. We read it out loud, he read it, he read it again.

 

I even loved it as a child.

[HS Mom in NC]

We didn't like it.

 

There are lots of other great classics out there.

[katilac]

I have not enjoyed it any age.

[twoxcell]

I read a couple chapters of it to my kids several years ago and then got rid of it. We were not fans and I do not think it is for young children. My kids have seen the old Disney cartoons of it though and liked them.

[Rosie_0801]

I liked the cartoon as a kid, but not the book. It's on my list to read to the kids though. Maybe I'll like it better this time.  :unsure:

[Cricket]

I guess we are the odd ones on this!  My oldest really liked it but he likes long descriptions of things.  The other kids liked it fine but really liked the adventures of Toad.  There is that one chapter in the middle that no one liked--The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.

[Julie Smith]

We read it two and a half times. The first time my boys were 4 and 5. Then again at 5 and 6. They both really liked it except for one chapter called, "Piper and the Gates of Dawn".

 

Youngest use to love yelling mole's battle cry of, "it's a mole". The second time we listened to an audio version and Eldest thought the voice of Toad pretending to be a washer women was so funny he almost peed himself. 

 

I did try to relisten to it again last year, but neither boy liked it and we stopped half way. 

[MercyA]

Not a fan here.  Pan gives me the creeps.

[Amy in NH]

I remember loving it when I read it quietly to myself.  I don't think I've ever tried to read it aloud to the kids, though.

 

The video is a hoot!

[lexi]

I tried reading it myself to determine when I would read it to my kids. I was so bored! It moves very slowly and I just couldn't finish it!

[Momof3]

I read an abridged version aloud to the kids maybe a year or two ago. I usually avoid abridged classics, but this one retained the literary style of the original (I thought) and ds liked it okay. He's a sweet & sensitive child, though. He liked Mole. :) Dh *loved* the story as a kid. I never cared for it. I liked the Disney version. :)

[HRAAB]

I've read it aloud three times and loved it more each time.  It's my all time favorite read aloud - I love reading that book aloud.  All my girls list it as a favorite book of theirs.  Why?  I'm not sure.  First, I didn't read before they were 4th grade.  I love hearing the language.  The characters are so memorable.  It's one of those books that makes me feel all warm and cozy, snuggled up on the couch, drinking tea, and reading all day.  We have also read the sequels by William Horwood.  My oldest dd and I are had an argument about who gets to read the book to her little girl.  She told me it was time to hand it over to the next generation.

 

I just asked two of my girls what they love about it, and they said it's the characters: Ratty, Mole, Badger.  How could you not love them.  Plus the peaceful descriptions of the river.  Also, the dialogue.  That's according to my 16 and 13 yr olds.

[Julie Smith]

My mom is very much like Rat, and she has a friend very similiar to Mole.

I'm trying to convince her to listen to the book. (she always listens to audio books, but seldom reads books)

[Indian summer]

My mom is very much like Rat, and she has a friend very similiar to Mole.

I'm trying to convince her to listen to the book. (she always listens to audio books, but seldom reads books)

Oh yes, we've also claimed the archetypes we are most like from this book. I do love the characters, I just wish there were some real adventure. But I think modern lit has ruined us for the sweet old fashioned variety of adventure.

[bettyandbob]

I thought it was boring. 

[Mommy22alyns]

I tried to read it myself and couldn't get into it.  DH just finished reading it to the girls though, and I think they ended up liking it.

[Garga]

I can't get past the first 2 pages so I don't know. I would think I don't like it being that I can't get into it in the slightest.

[rwjx2khsmj]

None of us are fans. 

 

[Piper]

I didn't like it at all as a kid, and having read it once, I studiously avoided it afterwards.  But, I recently read it aloud to my kids and finally realised why I hadn't liked it as a kid. I did enjoy it more this time around - and my kids seemed to enjoy it, and wanted to finish it.  At least they don't "hate" it as I did, but I wouldn't say it's their favorite, by any means.

[nmoira]

I don't get Toad though...

 

I remember reading an article on Salon years ago (about the evils of abridgement and "retelling") in which the author saw echoes of her manic depressive brother in Toad. 

 

FWIW, I cry every time I read Piper at the Gates of Dawn. It's too beautiful.

[nmoira]

Here's the article:

 

Abridged too far

[HRAAB]

I don't get Toad though...

 

Yeah, then there's Toad.  Poor dissatisfied Toad.  But he has true friends.

[TheBugs]

Here's the article:

 

Abridged too far

Great article! The Wind in the Willows was my favorite book as a child. I recently read the Great Illustrated classics version to my children and was disappointed. Maybe my mom still has my old copy with the beautiful illustrations.

[Cammie]

Great article! The Wind in the Willows was my favorite book as a child. I recently read the Great Illustrated classics version to my children and was disappointed. Maybe my mom still has my old copy with the beautiful illustrations.

 

I wish I could like this a thousand times.  Had to get rid of a whole series of Great Illustrated classics (must have purchased at Costco).  They were all terrible.  All the interesting language, the lovely complex sentences,and the rich vocabulary were GONE.  What was left - the bones of the story.  X went to Y and did Z.  I just could NOT stomach them!!

[shukriyya]

I grew up with ongoing allusions to various characters and scenes from WitW throughout my childhood, the result of a British father who loved the book. When I finally read it as an adult I disliked it but couldn't put my finger on why. Then as I was listening to the audio version with ds I realized that beneath all the bucolic ecstasy there isn't a single strong or sympathetic female character in the bunch and further I began to get the feeling that the author in a covert but active way wasn't too keen on women at all. I think in the end I felt a sense of exclusion from the overall joy of the book, a sense of 'move along, no room or need for your kind here'.

[Another Lynn]

One of the few read alouds we didn't finish!

[soufflegirl]

I haven't read it in years, but I think I enjoyed it at the time. I do remember loving the claymation series that was based off of it. I wanted a little yellow caravan like Toad, lol.

[maize]

I haven't succeeded in liking it yet, and I've always felt guilty about that :p

[ScoutTN]

We love it! My kids listen to the audiobook over and over again. We do have the movie and I think that helped ds to follow the story when he was younger and not get lost in the description.

[LibraryLover]

I love Wind in the WIllows. But I mostly love the Christmas chapter, Dulce Domum.

 

"He did not at all want to abandon the new life and its splendid spaces, to turn his back on sun and air, and all they had offered him and creep home and stay there; the upper world was all too strong, it called to him still, even down there, and he knew he must return to the larger stage.  But it was good to think he had this to come back to, this place which was all his own, these things which were so glad to see him again and could always be counted upon for the same simple welcome."

 

<sigh>

 

ETA: I enjoy it because it speaks to me,and the prose is so beautiful. It just makes me happy. lol   Maybe put it down and come back to it if it's not doing it for you. It doesn't really have a climatic ending. If you are curious, read ahead. :)  It's OK to not love something the first time out/or if it isn't speaking to you at the moment.

[musicianmom]

It's one of those I feel like I should like, but I don't really. Dd8 adores it, though, so I've enjoyed watching her enthusiasm.

 

Better WitW than Alice in Wonderland, though. That falls in the "I wish this book had never been written" category.

[Catherine]

Well, I have never been an Alice fan but it's one of my son's favorite books. Wind in the Willows though...it's snoozer IMO. One of the only classic books that none of us ever was able to get into or love. We never finished it, even reading aloud.

 

Everyone is permitted to have their own tastes. Just find something else!

[ThisIsTheDay]

My kids and I all loathed this book.  It stands out as one of the worst read alouds ever in our house!

[Kalmia]

With absolute sincerity, my life has been enriched by Grahame's sublime description of a river. He has captured the essence of a river in a single paragraph.

 

"Never in his life had he seen a river before--this sleek, sinuous, full-bodied animal,  chasing and chuckling, gripping things with a gurgle and leaving them with a laugh to fling itself on fresh playmates that shake themselves free, and were caught and held again. All was a-shake and a-shiver--glints and gleams and sparkles, rustle and swirl, chatter and bubble. The Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated. By the side of the river he trotted as one trots, when very small, by the side of a man who holds one spell-bound by exciting stories; and when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea." Kenneth Grahame

 

And of course, there is the famous quote: 

 

"There is nothing--absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats."

 

- Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, Ch. 1

 

If you are introducing literary devices, assonance, consonance, personification, or classic vocabulary words, The Wind in the Willows is an excellent teacher. I do think it is a book for older children, and for ones used to the slower pacing and elaborate descriptions of older stories. 

 

[shukriyya]

See, I read the above and while I can appreciate the poetry and various literary devices my mind gets tripped up by the reference to the river being male. Surely a body of water is one of the more female images in literature, beginning as we all do in that liminal womb-ocean. Why is the female narrative excluded to such an obvious degree here? This is essentially a rhetorical question or rather an out-loud musing that doesn't ask for an answer.

[stripe]

I have been reading Wind in the Willows in small sections to one of my kids for some time. We just read chapters occasionally. We haven't finished but I want to read it from the beginning to another. I absolutely adore it. 

 

By the way the BBC has a recording of an abridged version at http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/witw ; 9 episodes are up so far, and they will be removed on May 26.

 

Incidentally I read the Alice with illustrations by Helen Oxenbury. Completely different feel to it than the others. I felt it made it more approachable to a young child. I quite enjoyed it, but it's a very strange book. Watching the Disney movie was an amusing diversion as well.

[Miss Peregrine]

Hated it!

[DaffodilDreams]

Didn't love it. I liked it better than dd did, but it still wasn't something I loved.