Wind in the Willows is somewhat post-apocalyptic - Badger’s home is built on the ruins of a buried city.
And the City is where Toad is held, and where the motor cars and airplanes and the like come from.
I don’t agree with the thesis that the Wild Woods is an analogue of the city. It’s more peasantry versus landholders, and is an argument for enlightened landholding - the mustelids feel able to move in because Toad is degenerate and absent.
WitW is classist, sure, but it shows firm friendship across class barriers. And FTR, Toad isn’t an aristocrat, he’s landed gentry, which is a different thing.
No mention made so far of Lost Horizon, by James Hilton.
I first read this when I was about 14. It made an impression. A good one, I should say, about serendipity. I particularly enjoyed the 1937 Frank Capra film (not so much the 1973 musical aberration). I’d love to read it again. The public library likely has a copy; I’ll look into it.
As part of my thoughts on starting this thread, I’ve gone back and been reading Hitchhiker’s Guide. I’m almost to the end of So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish. I’m pretty sure I read Mostly Harmless when it came out, and I’d never even heard of And Another Thing… until just now.
I think in a way the first three books are victims of their own success. The funny turns of phrase (“exactly like a brick doesn’t”, etc.) have become so pervasive in nerdom, that those books read to me like they were trying too hard. So my absurd criticism of them is that I find them a bit tedious because they sound too much like they were written by Douglas Adams.
I have been surprised though at how much I’m enjoying So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish. So many of the affectations of the earlier books have been dropped, and it ends up just being a fun romantic comedy.
If I were you, I’d stop there. The last Adams book (Mostly Harmless) is pretty depressing.
Seems that he wrote that when he was going through some bad stuff in his life.
The ‘And Another Thing’ book is of course not written by Adams at all, and from what I recall doesn’t really capture any of his good qualities… at least, I was not impressed…
They dumbed Winnie the Pooh down to Hanna-Barbera level crude. Most of the charm of the book was the gentle humor and illustrations. It wouldn’t go over well today. Now it’s all in-your-face hyperactive loud Tigger.
To be fair, they dialed the Tigger content wayyyy down for the 2011 Winnie the Pooh film (and brought more focus back to Owl and Eeyore, who had all but disappeared from the franchise).
I have no quarrel with Disney’s Winne-the-Pooh adaptations from the 60s and 70s; they seem to be reasonably faithful to and respectful of the source material.
I would think an intellectual (owl) and a depressed character (Eeyore) would have been too much of a downer in the cartoons. I loved Owl - he could spell his own name! (‘WOL’) and was seen as the go-to for anything requiring thinking, lol.
While I’m here, let me mention one of my other favorite childhood books: ‘Starman’s Son’ by Andre Norton. Post-apocalyptic world, I really would like to read it again. (Maybe that’s why I today I locw post-apocalypse books, stories, movies, tv series.)
Right. He could have taken something like the Rupert books, which were always ongoing, and made something quite fun with that. But I guess it was a copyright issue?
The thing about the Pooh books is that they are a finished product. Like a diamond… you don’t try to re-cut it.
I think that’s “Daybreak 2250 AD”, isn’t it? That was one of the first science fiction books I ever read. I was very impressed at the time. Haven’t read it at all recently; might go see whether I’ve got a copy around. – found it. A rather battered copy, “Mr. Tripp room 306” written inside it. I can’t remember whether I ever had a “Mr. Tripp” but don’t think so; I may have picked up this copy from a used book store at some point.
Why yes, it is! I wonder why the title was changed.
Andre Norton must have written a million novels and stories! I started reading her bibliography on Wikipedia and only got half way through before my eyes gave out, lol,
This site: NORTON, ANDRE | Encyclopedia of Cleveland History | Case Western Reserve University thinks she was aiming at a wider audience; specifically trying to attract adult readers (though I wonder whether she wasn’t also trying to attract girls as well as adult women. I was so used to reading books with male protaganists that a title like the original wouldn’t have put me off; but some girls might have been.)
In 1952 she published Star Man’s Son, which was the beginning of her science fiction legacy. During the next 11 years, Norton’s novels expanded to target adults. The Star Man’s Son, for example, was renamed and republished as Daybreak-2250 A.D. to better capture an adult audience. This tactic was wildly successful. In 1958, Norton sold about one million copies of Daybreak-2250 A.D. Her other novels were then renamed and republished, becoming a wide success among young adult and adult readers.
Another theory I saw was that people seeing the title expected it to be about interstellar travellers.
Interesting! Thanks for the information. (when I was in late middle school in the 60’s, Star Trek had just come out. My friends and I LOVED Star Trek - and Mr. Spock. And we wrote our own fantasy and science fiction stories, complete with illustrations, in black-and-white marble notebooks. There wasn’t much sci-fi to read in our local library.
I never liked the “classic” kids’ books that a lot of you are mentioning. I had two favorite books that I re-read as an adult. I do not like re-reading books but these two I have.
The Horsemasters - Don Stanford
I still have the tattered paperback that I bought 50 years ago through the Scholastica Book Club. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve read that book.
The Velvet Room - Zilpha Keatley Snyder
I borrowed this from the school library at least 3 times, also 50 years ago. I found it on Amazon a few years ago and bought it and read it again.
As a long-time fan of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, I strongly suggest a re-read - but if you can, do it with The Annotated Alice, where you will learn about all the cool historical context. A lot of things in the story that just seem silly and nonsensical usually have some kind of reference point in Victorian culture, so you can begin to see it as the brilliant bit of satire it is (while still remaining wholly and entirely sincere in its desire to entertain children.)