Mr. Toad's wild ride: At Salon.com (click-through ad), Hilary Flower opens the Great Illustrated Classics edition of The Wind in the Willows, and discovers a childhood favorite has been Disneyfied. And don't get her started about Winnie the Pooh:

"If the Great Illustrated Classic of The Wind in the Willows is actually faithful to anything, that would be the many animated versions that have spun off from Grahame's book over the years. When Disney ate Milne's treasure, the evidence was everywhere. There are the trademark cartoon figures; there is the text that retells the popular cartoon more than Milne's stories. Fittingly, the Disney versions are to be found under 'D' in our library's children's section. Under 'M' you may, if you are lucky, find The Complete Tales and Poems of Winnie-the-Pooh, by Milne himself, intact and full of their original wit.

"But the Disneyfication of The Wind in the Willows is more insidious. Because, as Evil Clones are wont to do, Disney's Toad has gone back to wipe out the original, replace it with himself and cover his tracks. Only those who know to poke around will discern the plunder, and by that time the real treasure may be long gone. When our library's vintage copies of The Wind in the Willows finally wear out, the Great Illustrated Classic, with its sturdy library binding will be all that's left. And the only hint of the desecration will be the ambiguous but friendly 'adapted by' bit on the title page. We'll find Mole sick of cleaning. Toad flinging horrid little wagons. Mole sitting in his chair with a bubble of Badger over his head. Cleansed of 'divine discontent and longing,' bereft of 'poetry of motion,' with Mole never taking time out to smell Home, Little Portly neither lost nor found, and no Pan pipes to be forgotten by Rat or reader. Greatly diluted and poorly illustrated 'classics' will be the literary legacy left to our children."