Everything old is new again

One of the perennial habits of children's book publishers is recycling old favorites for a new audience, sometimes for a new generation of children and sometimes for adults. This season two annotated versions of Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows aimed clearly at adults have appeared. Grahame's fantasy of life in Edwardian England has a lasting appeal for many adults who grew up with tales of the forest animals that take off on an unplanned trip to see a new world. Children will accept almost any story that celebrates freedom from the constraints of daily life, but when adults re-examine the stories they see all sorts of themes that were invisible to their child-eyes. What does the story "really" mean? Does it matter? Every reader takes something different from a story, which is why many classics have continuing appeal. Perhaps the best thing for librarians to do is to make the stories available and let children--and adults--take what they will from them.