Posted by Jonathan Labaree on February 14, 2003 at 15:01:49 from 207.5.234.19 user JLabaree.
In Reply to: Re: the children's imagination posted by David Bamford on February 13, 2003 at 21:50:20:
Another trigger for this question was recently watching the 5-year-old son of a friend. You may remember I posted a query some time ago about the wager-boat in Wind in the Willows. Well, the young lad in question is a huge WW fan (he shows great promise, doesn’t he?). He makes up wonderful stories that place him in the book, engaged in the action or simply enjoying the scenery. He opens the map and points to a spot by the river: “This is where I sit and watch the sunset” or pointing out a house near a road: “This is Rat’s first house, before he moved to the river.” It’s absolutely enchanting to listen to him.
For Christmas I made him a blown-up version of the map that appears on the inside cover of the Ernest Shepard edition. I couldn’t find a commercially available map (which surprised me), so I scanned it at high resolution and printed it out rather large, 2’x3’, on a plotter we have in my office. He loves it.