With his book "The wind in the willows" Graham greated a book in which the animals are not really animals at all. They are physically of course, but they are dressed as humans, living like humans ( despite the Badger lives in the Wild Wood, Ratty on the River Bank and Mole at Mole End and Toad at Toad Hall - which is a very huge and expensive estate) and living with humans and speaking the same language as this would be normal. Well this sounds weird at first and if anybody would have told me about such a book I doubt I would have ever read it. But what can I say, it definitely works here.Maybe it is because it is a child book, written for childs and that makes it all working. What would the literature be without the good child books, where everything is possible, no boundaries to the story,where you can slip into another world and dreaming away. Those who never have read some good child book , never plunged into the world of the kids, had definitely missed something very special.It is very easy for me to drop into something like that and I love to read such kind of books from time to time. Well maybe not everybody is made for this, I guess thats why I was a passionate child care worker , you must be capable to remove your adult soul , or shut them up in a box and embark in the world of the children.Well the Willows at Christmas is set just after the events of Grahams Wind in the Willows but before of the events of The Willows in Winter, the first sequal of Horwoods books. And also in this book Horwood was successful to write a story without giving the main figures another character. Reading the book was like I never was away from the Willows , I just read the first lines and bloop - I`m into it again.Christmas is knocking on the door, and the Mole wants desperatly celebrate it with all his friends , of course including Mr. Toad. But Mr. Toad has a visitor , as every year during the holiday, which is a very unpleasant one and makes the most beloved season of the year very horrible for the old chap.So before the friends can celebrate christmas and the holidays , a very crumpy , patronizing nanny has to be eliminated, and of course, how can it be not, the Mole and Mr. Toad end up in jail and it is to their friends Mr. Badger, Ratty and Otter to invent a plan for there flight.But it all went out fine , the friends enjoying the time together and additionaly , at the end, the Mole get some pleasant , unexpected visit from his sister :)
Review from BadelyngeBack in the 90s William Horwood wrote three pastiche books that featured the best loved characters from Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. I really enjoyed them. Each book saw these characters mature until by the third book I suspected that Horwood would reboot the series by introducing a next generation of River Bank characters. This didn't happen. Three years passed before he was to revisit Mr. Toad, Mr. Mole and company. When first published after such a lengthy hiatus The Willows at Christmas flew swiftly under my radar, until now. In the hope of having some pleasingly seasonal reading material over the festive period I ordered a copy. Horwood has rolled back time to not long after K.Grahame's classic and prequelling his own trilogy.Mr. Mole is dismayed to discover that the spirit of Christmas has been lost by the riverbankers and the nearby village. He sets out to try to rediscover it. The early scenes with Mole investigating the causes of the lack of festivity are the best. Miss Bugle's sad little Christmas witnessed by the ever lovable Mole almost had me reaching for the handkerchief and for a mind boggling moment had me hoping for a little inter-species romance. The later sections of the book slide more into the sorts of situations that Mr. Toad's foolishness often resulted in the original. The threat of incarceration and execution should surely be familiar to Mr. Toad. Patrick Benson's rustic little line drawings and beautiful coloured plates complement the writing perfectly. Very good but never really replaces the original book in your heart but for those wishing to spend time with such beloved characters for a little bit longer you really can't go far wrong with this book and the three that preceded it.
