cover image The Wind in the Willows

The Wind in the Willows

Kenneth Grahame. Harcourt Children's Books, $24 (240pp) ISBN 978-0-15-216807-0

A few literary staples get a new look this season, while others are adapted and retold. Mole, Rat, Badger and Toad return in Kenneth Grahame's turn-of-the-20th-century classic, The Wind in the Willows (1908), newly illustrated by Michael Foreman. The keepsake edition presents Grahame's unabridged text alongside illustrations of the picnic-bound Mole and Rat capsizing their boat into a watery blue-green world and carolers bringing Yuletide joy to Mole End. Back matter contains a brief biography of the author as well as reproductions of original letters that Grahame sent to his young son, containing the seeds of the story.