The Wind in the Willows Paperback – 28 Jan. 2016

NOTE: The reviews given here seem to cover multiple DIFFERENT EDITIONS and the "Look Inside" feature is NOT showing the Inga Moore "Panorama Pops" edition. If you're looking for reviews of that edition please read on ...When pressing my Sister for birthday present ideas she mentioned this book but said it was unavailable. I checked good old Amazon and found it easily - Many 'wonderful brother' points scored there! Took a look when it arrived and my Sister was absolutely right, the illustrations by Inga Moore combine PERFECTLY with Kenneth Grahame's wonderful text. This is a beautiful edition and very well worth buying!!The text is a carefully abridged version of the full book, with the following tales missing:Chapter 7 - "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn"Chapter 9 - "Wayfarers All"Additionally, the original Chapter 11 "Like Summer Tempests Came His Tears" and chapter 12 "The Return of Ulysses" have been much abridged and combined into a new chapter called "The Return of Toad" with text amended to combine the essence of the two original chapters if not their detail.I'd have loved to see how Inga Moore would have treated "The Piper At The Gates of Dawn", and I missed the now excluded coda to the book where Toad finally realises what a braggart he is and turns over a new leaf to appear as a sensible, generous and modest host at the friends' victory party ... But there's so much else to love here that these are just regrets for lost opportunities rather than crippling faults.The book is quite large (approx 11 1/2" tall by 8 1/2" wide , is hardback, with 180 pages in nice satin finish paper. It is very well produced with tight binding and clear sharp printing, and it is COPIOUSLY illustrated with Inga Moore's beautiful full colour drawings. There must be about 90 illustrations as (allowing for full double-page illustrations) there seems to be about 1 illustration for each page of text. The illustrations are detailed, very nicely drawn and sympathetically coloured. The front cover image of Ratty & Mole in the rowing boat shown above IS from the Inga Moore edition and all the other illustrations in the book are the same quality and style. To repeat my warning - The "Look Inside" feature does NOT show this book and the crude illustration it shows is utterly unlike Inga Moore's lovely work.I found the text font size in the book to be a bit larger than I would prefer, but it's certainly not a problem I can't help wondering whether the publisher had to use a slightly larger font to let them synchronise text and illustrations while giving the illustrations the sort of size they deserve??The 'acid test' of how good this edition is ... Yes - After seeing the copy I bought for my Sister I have now ordered one for myself!!

Amazon appears to have amalgamated the reviews for all versions of Kenneth Grahame's book. This particular version, identifiable by a green band at the top and bottom of the cover picture and the date of 14th March for its addition to Amazon, is very poor. It appears to have been auto translated from a foreign language. The opening sentence is 'The Mole were running very hard all the morning, spring cleaning his little domestic.' It continues in like manner with grammatical errors and numerous changes to Grahame's original text.Disappointing that Amazon has put something like this up without checking it.

The best I can say is that my 5 year old was happy enough listening to it. But the rest of the family found it drippy and unconvincing. I deliberately searched for unabridged stories and the description says it is - but it is very abridged, and they've missed out the best parts. If it's a version for younger children, then please make that clear. The original book is a wonderful story, but this miserable attempt at a dramatised reading is an insult to the author and it may well have put my 10 yr old off actually reading the book.

This book is a personal favourite of mine, and one that I never get tired of reading, and I know that I am not the only adult that has read it many times, and will continue to do so. Great for children as well this is something that you can read to them in instalments, and when they are old enough, they can then read themselves.Published over a hundred years ago, rather like JK Rowling and her Harry Potter books this was turned down by a number of publishers, and when it was eventually published received some quite snooty reviews from critics. However despite this this was a hit with the public, and has remained so, and it is easy to see why.This isn’t perfect by any means and reading it you do soon realise that the animal characters change size on a number of occasions, from their normal animal size, to being larger and coming into contact with humans. They even have money, after all Mr Toad can buy anything he seemingly wants and lives in a hall.As Mole leaves his home for a look outside on a glorious spring morning so he comes into contact with Ratty, and the two are soon firm friends. With Badger, who Ratty already knows, Mole makes another new friend, and also with Toad. But with all the comedy and incident here it is Toad that captures everyone’s imagination. He is conceited and really to a certain extent obnoxious but we can’t help but root for him as he goes to prison, escapes and then finds out that Toad Hall is being squatted in by stoats and weasels.Creating a world that has many similarities with the real one at that period, this is a tale that keeps us all enthralled as we read of the many exploits and adventures that happen here, as well as the more sedate side of life, with relaxing and taking meals with friends. Always a treat to read there is one thing here that you end up saying and can’t help yourself when you get into a car, and that is Toad’s saying of ‘Poop! Poop!’ Don’t worry it does wear off after a few days, but the next time you read the book it happens again.