I've blogged before about my abiding love for Wind in the Willows (https://www.reloten.com/post/back-to-the-beginning-part-3) , but the series of follow up books that William Horwood wrote also have a special place in my heart. They allowed me to go back into that world and meet Ratty and Mole again and again. But all good things, as they say, must come to an end and this was the last book in the series. It was beautiful and moving and I hated it. At least, I didn't, I loved it, but oh my goodness the tears I shed on reading it. I've never been able to bring myself to re-read it, such was the trauma of reading it the first time around. This is one of only two books that have actually broken my heart (the other was Rilla of Ingleside, but I'm using an 'Anne' book for another day) and these were the ones that found me sobbing at two o'clock in the morning. No other books have ever affected me like that. I get emotionally involved with characters on a regular basis, but not usually to the extent that I shed actual tears.

I think this book and the others in the series are so tied up with childhood memories that I will never not cry when the characters are hurting. The original has found its way into my MA dissertation and although it's fictionalised, in those few paragraphs, it's 95% me that is being described.

If you loved the original, this is well worth a read, but don't read it to children, unless you want them to be traumatised for life!