Shabbat Reading: Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows

#whatireadovershabbat Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows (1908; Penguin, 2005)

In the English language, there is no book more charming. There are wittier books, more audacious ones, and more incisive, but I know none more charming. The charm lies partly in the language—the fine, flowing prose that breaks sometimes into rhyme—and partly in the characters, the unbeatable Mole, Rat, Toad, and Badger. Through adventure and misadventure, songs and tears, Grahame’s prose and his spirited characters together compose an idyll fringed with darkness. Indeed, charming doesn’t mean innocent. But that part of The Wind in the Willows I encourage you to discover for yourself.