These books really need reissuing again. Lately the well-known ones (Wizard of Oz, Treasure Island, Anne of Green Gables) have been spruced up for a new generation with some lovely covers. The Wind on the Moon and others like it need the same. It's every bit the classic the three mentioned are. But it won't stand a chance unless a lucky child has a parent who remembers it from childhood.I only discovered it after seeing it won the Carnegie back in the 1940s and decided to try it. And it's perfect. Wish I'd read it at the age of nine. More magical than Mary Poppins, there are adventures with talking animals, prison escapes, magic potions. It's a wonderful childhood read, full of imagination and spirit.Dinah and Dorinda never once seem like two good girls to whom nothing interesting will ever happen - from the very start, we know that the 'wind on the moon' is likely to make them do very naughty things while their daddy is away at war. And they don't let us down... from eating so much until they can only walk by rolling, they then decide to get their own back on their taunters by turning into animals and scaring everyone. And that sets off a whole new set of adventures. Still later, they learn their father is a prisoner in a faraway castle...The girls reminded me of the best child characters in fiction - they aren't pretty and twee but full of fun and bravery, mischief and curiosity. The world around them is affectionately built as well, lots of minor characters you learn to love, especially their know-all nurse (their mother of course, is usually busy or absent in mind, not noticing what the girls are up to). The animal characters too are well drawn and a lot of fun, and the book makes some good points about zoos and freedom (both good and bad points are raised).The prison chapters reminded me of The Rescuers (which I also recently read for the first time), and is almost a Part Two to the Zoo focus of the first half of the book. It all makes a satisfying whole however, and will hold the attention of a child reading to themselves, but I think I would actualy like to read this to my son and share it with him when he's 6/7. You do get a feel for the period, but it's perfectly accessible in language and context and makes a refreshing change from contemporary family dramas, though it does have moments of keen pathos. So so glad I finally read it.
I don't think it unreasonable to couple this book with Alice. Both weave fictional and impossible worlds that reveal a great deal about our own world when explored by headstrong female juvenile leads. Both take time to make philosophical observations about the world and how we can know it. Epistemology, metaphysics and logic all get a runaround in here, as does philosophy of education and political philosophy. One of the main themes is freedom and confinement, both in terms of imprisonment (often false imprisonment) and independence of thought and action. Do we learn more by conformity or rebellion? Like all good philosophy books it asks more than it answers and it asks many of the right questions.As a work of children's fiction I think it does well. Looking at other reviews, it does more than hold the attention, it delights. The philosophy is not the clever hidden layer that is revealed only when you get older; The Wind in the Willows is the wind of change and destruction; it is asking questions of its young readers. Being written in wartime by one who had served and been shot in a previous world shattering conflict, it is perhaps saying to the next generation; forget the way we learnt. We've brought about tyranny and bloodshed and corruption and wrong. By disobeying, the girls free the righteous and the brave.It forms a natural link between the Victorian and Edwardian writers with Ahlbergs and chapeaued cats and hungry caterpillars. Maybe it's let down by the rather charming, occasionally unsettling but always badly dated illustrations. Would we still be reading Lewis Carrol and Kenneth Graham in such numbers if they'd had different illustrators? Personally I think we would, but I also think that with a Tenniel or a Shepherd more people might still be reading The Wind on the Moon.A worthy recipient of The Carnegie Medal.
Do You like book The Wind On The Moon (2004)?
I read this firstly when I was in my last year in Junior school. I absolutely loved it then. When I met my now husband, I found out he had read it in school and loved it too, so we bought a copy and read it again. It had lost none of its charm and we both really enjoyed it despite being in our twenties. I would urge any parent or teacher to encourage children to read this book which is clever, bewitching and very funny! PS. I bought a first edition of The Wind on the Moon for my husband for a special Birthday. He was delighted!
—Debbie
This was not what I was expecting! I picked it up at the library, intrigued by the cover first and illustrations second. I assumed I would be reading a story of British school-girl highjinks during WWII. ..... And it was ..... Kind of. The adventures in which Dinah and Dorinda find themselves are totally fantastical. Even more so because Linklater writes about these 2 young girls turning into kangaroos as if it were the usual thing to write about...and even the usual thing to do. There are talking animals, dangerous escapades, mystery and crime, and a Father to rescue from an Evil Dictator. I won't say anymore, because if you are intrigued, you should read it without further spoilers from me.
—Taylor
WHY: I'm currently picking through the New York Review's children's re-issues and this sounded good. "In the English village of Midmeddlecum, Major Palfrey asks his two daughters to behave themselves while he is off at war. Sighs Dinah, 'I think that we are quite likely to be bad, however hard we try not to be,' and her sister Dorinda adds helpfully, 'Very often, when we think we are behaving well, some grown-up person says we are really quite bad. It's difficult to tell which is which.' A tale of hilarity and great adventure, The Wind on the Moon is also a work of high seriousness; after all, 'life without freedom,' as the valiant puma makes clear, 'is a poor, poor thing.'"
—Logan
