The Wind in the Willows: Illustrated Edition (Union Square Kids Illustrated Classics)

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TWO MORE STOATS have meanwhile advanced on TOAD. BADGER amusingly decapitates them with a single blow of his cudgel.] She draws animals with a confidence born of empathy. "If I want to draw a buzzard," she explains, "I just imagine myself up there, and I can feel myself flying. I simply put myself in the body of whatever creature I'm trying to draw – I used to think everyone did that."

Chapter 7 was the basis for the name and lyrics of "Piper at the Gates of Dawn", a song by the Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison from his 1997 album The Healing Game. With the arrival of spring and fine weather outside, the good-natured Mole loses patience with spring cleaning. He flees his underground home, emerging to take in the air and ends up at the river, which he has never seen before. Here he meets Rat (a water vole), who at this time of year spends all his days in, on and close by the river. Rat takes Mole for a ride in his rowing boat. They get along well and spend many more days boating, with “Ratty” teaching Mole the ways of the river, with the two friends living together in Ratty's riverside home.The Wind in the Willows (a musical in two acts) adapted by Andrew Gordon for Olympia Family Theater, music by Bruce Whitney, lyrics by Daven Tillinghast, Andrew Gordon, and Bruce Whitney, premiered 2012. [16] In 2013 Andrew Gordon produced a full-cast audio adaptation of his stage play, available on Audible and on CD. [22] THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS, a turn-of-the century children's story written by Kenneth Grahame in 1908, has deservedly withstood the onslaught of time. On the surface, THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS is an allegory that tells the story of the adventures and misadventures of Toad, Rat, Badger and Mole in the rural English countryside. The pastoral narratives and witty dialogues are charming, evocative and warmly mellifluous without ever approaching doleful or lugubrious. I simply can't imagine the smile it would bring to a child's face were a parent to make the effort to read this as a bed-time story with four separate voices reserved for each of the main characters.

The result is a vibrant yet naturalistic illustration of old-fashioned country life. The affectionately drawn characters are set within countryside which is imbued with the season and the time of day, and is heavily atmospheric. The trees are dark, knobbly, brooding - and a few have faces, especially in the night time scenes. The riverbank is fresh and verdant, with easily to identify familiar flora bursting forth. It's about the forest adventures of the comrades rat and mole, luncheons, dinner parties, forest gala setting and hubbub, the vanity and conceited adventures of Mr. Toad and the sagacity of our revered Badger. All are gallivanting around in the forest, a pure joyride!

The British extreme metal band Cradle of Filth released a special edition of its album Thornography called Harder, Darker, Faster: Thornography Deluxe; on the song "Snake-Eyed and the Venomous", a pun is made in the lyrics "...all vipers at the gates of dawn" referring to Chapter 7 of the book.