Dream days

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Dream Days is a collection of stories by British writer Kenneth Grahame , 1898 under the title Dream Days First published mainly because the contained story The dragon who did not want to fight ( The Reluctant Dragon ) became known.

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With the stories of five children - Edward, Selina, Harold, Charlotte and an unnamed narrator - Kenneth Grahame's book was so successful with critics and readers that his book The Wind in the Willows , published ten years later in 1908, was disappointing by comparison .

A century later, it is now becoming clear that this collection of humorous, lyrical and fragile-moving stories had a profound impact on children's and youth literature . As Julia Eccleshare describes in a new edition, the book is more than an idolization of childhood, a celebration of children's imaginative play that removes them from adults and strengthens them when they are largely powerless due to the realities of their life (“a celebration of the imaginative play of children which sets them apart from adults and empowers them at a time when, within the realities of their lives, they are largely powerless ").

In October 21 ( The Twenty-first of October ) Selina tried a devoted admirer of Nelson the day of Trafalgar to commit with the lighting of a bonfire - with devastating consequences.

In Walls are like Jasper ( The Walls Were as of Jasper ) the child-narrator flees a languishing visit with neighbors, in which he loses himself in the images of a beautiful book: pictures never lie, are never mixed, nor forsake them ; and for this story I can create it myself ("Pictures never lied, never shuffled nor evaded; and as for the story, I could invent it myself").

The dragon who did not want to fight ( The Reluctant Dragon ) tells of a friendship between a little boy and a gallant, poems written dragon which is in the hill country of Berkshire had settled and happy is he legally ignorant about how the alert his presence in the local Villages is included. It is up to the boy to ensure that the anticipated arrival of St. George does not cause the destruction of his new friend. This most famous of the stories was made into a film by The Walt Disney Company in 1941 as an episode entitled The Unwilling Dragon .

Other stories of the book are Dies Irae , Mutabile Semper , The Magic Ring ( The Magic Ring ), The Saga of the seas ( A Saga of the Seas ) and a departure ( A Departure ).

The book was written from the perspective of a retreating adult and takes on the frustrations of children facing adults who have forgotten what is like to be young, which is also reflected in the following sentence The dragon that did not want to fight becomes clear: Look here, father, you know that each of us does our own thing. You know about sheep, and the weather, and things; I know about dragons ("Look here, father, you know we've each of us got our line. You know about sheep, and weather, and things; I know about dragons.")

Grahame's main characters are lively and convincingly portrayed, regardless of whether they are playing a pirate, inventing magical areas, going to the circus or simply fighting wildly with one another.

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