Suitabook

The Wind in the Willows

Kenneth Grahame

Reading: Try several chapters aloud before deciding how independently to continue. Pause to clarify unfamiliar expressions and social customs, then revisit frightening scenes and ask how friendship affects each character’s choices.
Themes: Friendship and loyalty: Mole, Water Rat, Badger and Otter repeatedly welcome, rescue and help one another, including during difficult journeys and Toad’s troubles. The friendships are presented as a dependable social good and as central to the story’s structure.
Impulsiveness and responsibility: Toad rapidly abandons one enthusiasm for another, becomes absorbed in motor-cars, and causes trouble through reckless or unlawful actions. Toad is entertaining but irresponsible; friends act cautiously and try to protect him, while the text indicates possible reform.
Belonging and social conventions: The characters live in a society shaped by animal etiquette, protocol and a portrayal of British upper-class society. The book presents this mainly as information or explanation.
Worth knowing: Some episodes involve fear, threats, property damage, fighting, shooting and imprisonment. Toad also steals a car and a horse; the treatment of these actions and the ending should be discussed rather than assumed.