by Kenneth Grahame

“The Golden Age” and “Dream Days” are Kenneth Grahame’s affectionate reminiscences of his idyllic childhood in 1860s Berkshire, including the classic story “The Reluctant Dragon”. The stories are both entertaining (as you’d expect from the author of “The Wind in the Willows”) and grimly tolerant of the unthinking adults who have no conception of the importance of catapults, ferrets and mud.

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Review

Mr Toad (“Parp, parp!”), Ratty (“There is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats,”), Mole and Badger – most of us have come across Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 childrens classic The Wind in the Willows. The strands of the book are based on stories Grahame told his young son, Alastair – who was, apparently, the model for Toad.  But before Alastair, before Grahame was even married, he wrote these enchanting memoirs of childhood – The Golden Age (1895) and Dream Days (1898). (more…)