Just such a heart-warming book about Mole and Ratty and Badger, the Otter, and indubitably, Toad. More of their adventures since The Wind in the Willows. A great and engrossing book. ( )

A sequel to The Wind In The Willows would clearly be a most welcome thing.

This isn't it. It falls badly flat.

It has none of the subtlety, the beauty or the humour of the original. The characters are the originals, with a couple of new ones. Who appear, then are discarded. Mole's Nephew hardly speaks. Portly, a minor player who returns, can barely do so for being so cold. Even Badger has been reduced to black and white without any colour, even grey. Why is there no glorious Pickwickian chapter of Badger's promised High Tea? The only character given any space at all is Toad, who is just the same old caricature. That's not enough to be a sequel to a book of Willows' stature. Even the metaphysics is sadly lacking; we revisit the Piper at the Gates of Dawn's island and Mole waxes philosophical, but there's just nothing to it. Everything here is as thin and washed-out as a Winter afternoon. It was very difficult to even finish this. ( )

"Here, at last, is thye stunning recreation of the much-loved world of Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows that we secretly all know we wanted, but never dared hope we might find ...

"For now, in an act of homage and celebration, William Horwood has brought to life once more the four most-loved characters in English literature: the loyal Mole, the resourceful Water Rat, the stern but wise Badger, and of course, the exasperating, irresistible Toad. Published in England in 1993, it was a resounding success, a bestseller for three months, and acclaimed as that rarest of literary treats -- a sequel truly worthy of the name.

"Since he was a child, William Horwood has known and loved The Wind in the Willows , but something at the end of the books has always worried him -- the idea that, as Grahame put it, 'He was indeed an altered Toad.'

"'Toad altered!' says Horwood, 'I didn't believe it then and I don't now, and I doubt if many millions of people who have enjoyed Grahame's book believe it either. Toad always seemed to me incorrigibly unaltered, and what I wanted to know was, 'What happened to him next?'

"The result is an enchanting, unforgettable new novel, enlivened by the delightful illustrations, in which William Horwood has recaptured all the joy, magic, and good humor of Grahame's great work -- and Toad is still as exasperatingly lovable as he ever was."
~~front & back flaps

I am one of the world's greatest The Wind in the Willows fans! I own several copies, and have the annotated version on my wish list. I was delighted to find this book, and dove eagerly into it. I wish I could put my finger on why I didn't love it as much as I do The Wind in the Willows. The illustrations are indeed lovely, and the book is beautifully laid out. But somehow the story seemed a bit thin, the characters not quite their old selves. It just didn't seem to have the depth and breadth that the original did. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't as good as I had hoped it would be. There are three more books by Horwood in this series, and I'll read them all, just in case I change my mind, or just in case they get better as he goes along. ( )

Sequels by authors other than the original... so seldom do they hit the right note.

The Willows In Winter by William Horwood is one that does. Here are Badger, Mole, Otter, Rat and Toad just as we left them. Absolutely excellent! The drawings by Patrick Benson are as true as Shephard's. Can not get over how good it was in keeping true to the original Wind in the Willows. ( )

Read a review of this in the Chicago Tribune book section, and was very eager to get it. It's good enough, though to compare it to the original is pointless. It's a strange comparison, but it made me think of Son of Kong, the sequel to King Kong--an order of magnitude less than the original, but it does one thing perfectly: It takes us back to the special world of the original. Aided immeasurably by the wonderful illustrations of Patrick Benson, which are reminiscent of those of Ernest Shepard. I'm not sure the story would work without the pictures. ( )