Book #572 – The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Somehow I missed this one growing up. I’m pretty sure a lot of kids read this for assigned reading in elementary school. The only assigned books I can remember from my first 7 years of schooling are A Cricket in Time Square and Number the Stars. We did have the system where you read a book of your choice and took a quiz for points, but for the life of me, I can’t remember what that was called. I do remember I had my mother print out the entirety of the books that were available for points and I carried a huge stack of papers with me any time we went to the library. Yes, I’ve been obsessed with lists for decades.

Originally published in 1908, The Wind in the Willows was almost not published, as several publishers rejected Kenneth Grahame’s manuscript. This may have been due to several critics hopes that Grahame would continue the works started with The Golden Age, and that a book of fiction containing animals was not what they were expecting. Since its publication, however, it’s been met with high praise and was even in the top 20 of the BBC Big Read in 2003. There’s been numerous television series and movies, stage plays and radio shows, and even numerous sequels written by other authors.

Book #181 – The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Well, now that I’ve read about a couple vampires, a monster or two, and a haunted hotel, how about some Neil Gaiman? After all, his story about evil witches chasing a fallen star made last year’s list. And really, so many horror stories end up in graveyards at some point: Night of the Living Dead, The Omen, Pet Semetary… It’s a Wonderful Life. (What do you mean that isn’t a horror story? Have you seen Pottersville? That’s terrifying.) In this case, the story begins and ends at the graveyard gates and gives voices to those that are no longer among the living.

The book was published in the United Kingdom in September of 2008, but what really made me think the book belonged on this year’s Halloween list was that it became available in the United States on October 31, 2008. I would have been in my freshman year of college at the time, and sadly, in a bit of a reading slump, which may explain how it escaped my noticed until now. However, it certainly didn’t escape the notice of the literary world, winning both the Newberry Medal and the Hugo Award that year. It’s also been docked for a movie since 2009, but has seen a massive shift in studios and directors since then, so no idea if that will ever come to fruition.