Dream Days (1898) is a collection of children's stories by Kenneth Grahame. It was published as a sequel to The Golden Age (1895), a collection of semi-autobiographical stories reflecting on the nature of childhood and the strange, distant lives of adults. Although less popular than The Wind in the Willows (1908), which would go on to become not only a defining work of Edwardian English literature, but one of the most popular works of children's fiction in the world, Dream Days features "The Reluctant Dragon," one of ...
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Dream Days (1898) is a collection of children's stories by Kenneth Grahame. It was published as a sequel to The Golden Age (1895), a collection of semi-autobiographical stories reflecting on the nature of childhood and the strange, distant lives of adults. Although less popular than The Wind in the Willows (1908), which would go on to become not only a defining work of Edwardian English literature, but one of the most popular works of children's fiction in the world, Dream Days features "The Reluctant Dragon," one of Grahame's most enduring short works of fiction. Carrying on the themes and concerns of The Golden Age , the author reflects on his youth among elders who exemplified Victorian values of stoicism and quiet decency. In these stories of innocence and experience, he recalls the games they played, the places they discovered, and the legends they made of the normal, the boring, and the everyday wonders of an old world seen through young eyes. "The Reluctant Dragon," the centerpiece of Dream Days , is a story about a young boy who discovers a wise, poetry-loving dragon while exploring the Berkshire Downs near his home in Oxfordshire. Against all appearances, the two sensitive souls become fast friends. When the townspeople discover the dragon, however, they send for the legendary St. George to slay the creature they see as a threat. Faced with the loss of his only friend in the world, the young boy must convince St. George to not only spare the dragon's life, but to convince the townspeople of his kind and gentle nature. Dream Days is a collection of stories for children which finds room for fantasy and adventure in the smallest of places, and kindness in the largest of hearts. Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book. With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.
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I love THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS, and had expected to love this book too. Instead, I found it a rather tedious bid for sympathy for the author's childhood, one in which he and his orphaned siblings were raised by aunts for whom he had enduring spite.
I have little patience with books that depict adults as the enemies of children --and the idyllic rural setting in which the orphaned children shared their childhood with their aunts sounds blissful, an invitation to imaginative play. The author's account of it makes more vivid his scorn for "the Olympians" (the aunts who offered them a comfortable home are never named) that it does the warmth that may have existed between the siblings. (it would be interesting to know if his siblings may have enjoyed those years more than did young Kenneth.)
I'd never choose to share this book with a child; it is unattractively mean-spirited. I assume his later adult life was happier, allowing us to have the book that made his name.
Were it not for the lovely illustrations, my rating would have been one star.