I just finished reading Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, and its probably one of my top five books of all time.
For a long while I thought I just wasn't into books anymore, because I don't like reading YA or "adult people books". I guess I kind of forgot that I could just read literally anything else LMAO. So after going through a multi year reading drought (I'm not counting manga, or comics, because they really are mostly pictures. Not sorry.) I just said fuck it, and started reading children's books again. Specifically older books with length and some complexity. Honestly it has me reading almost as much as I used to when I was a kid.
I like fantasy, but all the YA fantasy I came across was so boiled chicken dry I couldn't do it. There is a severe lack of whimsy + I don't like books about sexy werewolves/elves/vampires/demigod fighting over a self insert white girl. Also there's a weird "Don't say Zombie" problem where the fantasy mfers are all vampyrs (2 syllables) and fæfollk. I can't stand that shit. Like please stop trying to force uniqueness in your marketable romantasy, we all know you demons are skimming the book for the sex parts anyway.
Lmao back on topic. I like nice things with animal characters so I guess it was natural that I'd find Wind in the Willows eventually. I don't remember if I found the animated version on YouTube first while watching Little Bear, or on Pinterest. I've seen the book cover with Pan above the title thought it looked cool, then eventually I made a Pinterest board full of Beatrix Potter, Winnie the Pooh, Calico Critters, and stuff like that, so illustrations from the book started coming up. And I have to say, the illustrations are GREAT. Like there have been plenty of different illustrators (old book) and honestly, they're all really well done. So once I hit this year's "I need to read more books" kick, I knew what I was reading first.
WARNING! There will be some spoilers past the jump so be alert.
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