LEARNING TO FLY: Maybe it doesn’t happen for everyone. But for those who love books, it's not hard to remember that moment when they fell in love with reading.
Maybe it happened early on, with Dr. Seuss. Maybe it came later, during the early pangs of adolescence, with Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.
For me, it happened when I first laid hands upon The Wind in the Willows. What a strange and wonderful world Kenneth Grahame described in his 1908 novel for children. This tale of a mole, a river rat, a badger and the officious Mr. Toad was the first major step in my lifelong reading habit. Not sure where that first copy came from: It was the 50th anniversary Scribners edition, illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard, and it came out when I was three. It was probably my older brother’s copy.
At school, I plunged into reading – Robb White’s The Lion’s Paw , a whole series of biographical books aimed at the elementary school set – but Wind in the Willows was sort of a secret. None of my other friends had read it. Maybe, I figured, it was an English thing. I’d spent my first few Wonder Years in England. Later, when I read that the book was one of John Lennon’s childhood inspirations, I felt some kind of vindication.
None of my friends here in the States had read Wind in the Willows, though they were conversant in Poohspeak. A.A. Milne’s Winnie-The-Pooh came two decades after Grahame’s book, but both books were illustrated by the same artist, Shepard, who did the Wind in the Willows I knew best.
Now, just after its 100th anniversary, Wind in the Willows is back, in the deluxe treatment. That classic Scribners edition I grew up with is still available (from Atheneum Books), but W.W. Norton, the publisher that produces the “Annotated” series of books, has turned its reverent and superb attention to this classic of children’s literaure. (Norton has produced several books in the "annotated" series. Click here for more.)
The Annotated Wind in the Willows (W.W. Norton, $39.95) fascinates and entertains on so many levels.
First of all, there’s the great story of the adventures of Mole and Rat and how they band together with Badger to assist Mr. Toad in his battle against evil. There’s also a moment of revelation about the mystic powers of language. The chapter titled “Pipers at the Gates of Dawn” struck me in ways I didn’t begin to understand as a child. Yet it took me to another level and I realized language could guide you into a dream state. (It also might have inspired my first hallucinations, but that's another story.)
This article appears in Jun 17-23, 2009.