In an interview on Equality

The Wind in the Willows – I’m intrigued.

This is a very personal choice. I come from a standard immigrant, urban background and reading Wind in the Willows opened my eyes to the way the English upper middle classes lived and the things they thought were important. Countryside. Woods – what the hell were woods? Picnics. So before I had even discovered Enid Blyton’s Famous Five, all these details – sandwiches, lemonade – were just jaw-dropping to me.

Essentially there is a bad reading and good reading. The bad reading is that it is a parable about class, where the stoats and the weasels are working-class oiks who invade an Edwardian perpetual summer in which we go boating and chasing lambs in the fields and whatnot. They take over Toad Hall and it’s all very unjust and revolutionary. Later in life I had a flirtation with Maoism – maybe it was because I had sympathy with the revolutionary stoats and weasels, they were on the right side against someone as repulsive as Toad.

But the good reading is what underlies all this: Badger as a sort of maven, a symbol of the values of decency and fair play. He’s a bit stodgy and dull but in the end he is somebody who will take people for what they are and treat them decently. He believes in protecting, in this case the property rights of the aristocracy, but more broadly the rule of law.

Wind in the Willows is tied up with an age of Englishness which I think had a great many things to recommend it. People were a lot less embarrassed than they are now to talk about values – even if those values might not be ones you would share today. I think it’s good for young people, these ideas that you should be fair to people, and that there are certain ways of behaving that are reasonable in a good society. If you want to translate it into political terms, Badger would be a one-nation Tory. I have got a lot of time for his horror at Toad’s selfishness.

So is Toad a nouveau riche or an aristocrat who doesn’t understand his responsibilities?

Well, Toad has inherited his wealth from his father, who was Badger’s friend: these are country types who have a great sense of responsibility for keeping the community together, giving a shilling or to the poor, the sort of things today we gulp at. But underlying it all is a fundamental idea of fair play. Toad is a conspicuous consumer, a materialist, a faddist. And bear in mind one of the most interesting moments is when Toad has to pretend to be a washerwoman, which means he has to put his hands into washing water and they become wrinkled and he sees it as terribly ghastly – and actually this was what the upper classes used to be like.

As long as they exist, the upper classes have to be drawn into recognising that they have some relationship with the rest of society and something in common with society – that’s what the humbling of Toad is about.

In an interview on Children’s and Teenage Fiction

You have already mentioned that The Wind in the Willows was the first book you ever read, but considering you have a reputation for writing about hard-hitting subjects like smack addicts and teenage sex, I am interested that your first choice is a gentle tale of river folk which was first published in 1908.

Most of the books that I have picked are really teenage fiction because that is my area but this is the very first book I fell in love with. I just adored The Wind in the Willows. It was first read to me and then I read it and took it into school to be read. I really loved the cosy chapters in particular.

There are two sides to The Wind in the Willows. There are the Toad chapters where he is out having adventures. But there is also a big theme in the book which is about home – for example, the chapter “Dulce Domum” where Mole finds his house again and when the little Otter gets lost and the great god Pan comes along and helps him. I loved them so much my parents actually had someone paint a picture of Pan for me on my wall. I was just really taken with those romantic, nostalgic, homely types of things at that time. It wasn’t until much later that I started becoming interested in the relationship between fiction and real life.

Why do you think you were so taken with those descriptions about home?

They were just so cosy and warm and snugly. The fiction that I liked when I was young was very much about cosy little adventures with animals and that sort of thing. I didn’t even really like The Famous Five by Enid Blyton because it was a bit too realistic.

What characters did you like best in The Wind in the Willows, because lots of people do go for Mr Toad, who is much more flamboyant – stealing cars, going to prison and escaping dressed as a washerwoman – rather than Ratty or Mole?

No it was the Mole and the Rat for me. There is a lot in the book that isn’t about Toad. There is one chapter when Rat is tempted to leave and go off travelling because the swallows are leaving, but in the end he decides home is more important. And, of course, all of Toad’s adventures end up with him trying to recapture his home, so that is very much a central theme to the book.

I saw a play of it recently that was lovely, but I was thinking twice about reading it to my children, who are seven and six. Do you think this book still works for today’s children?

I read it to my kids and they did enjoy it, although I am not sure they enjoyed it as much as I did!

So maybe it is more of a book for our generation, which brings back the nostalgia of childhood?

Maybe, but you can always try it on them. Read a short bit each night and if they get bored they get bored. It will be interesting to see how it goes.

In an interview on Children’s books for Christmas

This is the very first book I fell in love with. I just adored The Wind in the Willows. First it was read to me, and then I read it and took it into school to be read. I loved the cosy chapters in particular.

There are two sides to The Wind in the Willows. There are the Toad chapters, where he is out having adventures. But there is also a big theme in the book about home – for example the chapter “Dulce Domum”, where Mole finds his house again, and when the little Otter gets lost and the great god Pan comes along and helps him. I loved them so much, my parents actually had someone paint a picture of Pan for me on my wall. I was really taken with those romantic, nostalgic, homely types of things at that time. It wasn’t until much later that I started becoming interested in the relationship between fiction and real life.

Why were you so taken with those descriptions of home?

They were just so cosy and warm and snugly. The fiction that I liked when I was young was very much about adventures with animals and that sort of thing. I didn’t even really like The Famous Five by Enid Blyton, because it was a bit too realistic.

What characters did you like best in The Wind in the Willows? Lots of people go for Mr Toad, who is much more flamboyant – stealing cars, going to prison and escaping dressed as a washerwoman – than Ratty or Mole.

No, it was the Mole and Rat for me. There is a lot in the book that isn’t about Toad. There is one chapter when Rat is tempted to leave and go travelling, because the swallows are leaving, but in the end he decides home is more important. And, of course, all of Toad’s adventures end up with him trying to recapture his home, so that is a central theme to the book.

Do you think this book still works for today’s children?

I read it to my kids and they did enjoy it, although I am not sure they enjoyed it as much as I did!

So maybe it is more of a book for our generation, which brings back the nostalgia of childhood?

Maybe, but you can always try it on them. Read a short bit each night, and if they get bored they get bored. It will be interesting to see how it goes.

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Michael Morpurgo, writer and former Children's Laureate, recommends: