That quibble aside I enjoyed these morality fables and adventure stories, with those centring on Mowgli and his lessons in the Laws of the Jungle topping the list. The most significant contravention of this occurs, I think, in the story “Her Majesty’s Servants” in which, in my opinion, a group of animals serving various roles in a British regiment shade a bit more towards taking on the roles of their all-too human handlers. The animals are presented as having languages and customs of their own and Kipling generally does a pretty neat trick of managing to straddle the line between having his animal characters behave too much like humans and having them fall into unrelatability by being purely ‘animals’. The tragedy and pathos of the tribulations and abuse animals often have to suffer at the hands of man are not glossed over, but neither is it implied that all interactions between mankind and the animal kingdom are destructive or unwarranted. The most famous of these stories are probably those that revolve around Mowgli, the jungle boy raised by wolves in India whose adventures with Baloo the bear and Bagheera the panther against the machinations of Shere Khan the tiger are fairly well-known (even resulting in a typically watered-down Disney movie from many years ago).Īll of the stories are notable for their fairly even handed treatment of the interactions between animals and men. A collection of short stories, all of which revolve around the lives and troubles of different animals and the people who interact with them, it has a surprising amount of depth coupled with rather pleasant prose. Rudyard Kipling’s _The Jungle Book_ is an enjoyable read. This edition includes illustrations by John L.

One of the most popular collections of short stories for children ever written, “The Jungle Book” was inspired by Kipling’s own experiences as a youth in India, where he would spend many of his formative years. Several other tales of the jungle grace this collection which is interspersed with beautiful poetry relating to the stories. Also contained in this collection are the stories of Kotick, a white seal in search of a new home for his tribe were they will not be hunted, and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, a mongoose who defends an Indian family against a pair of cobras. A cast of interesting creatures surround Mowgli, including Baloo the bear and Bagheera the black panther, who help the young man to survive, and the tiger Shere Khan, who is envious of Mowgli and wishes his demise. To survive in the jungle Mowgli most learn from the animals to abide by the laws of the jungle. First published serially between 18, “The Jungle Book” is Rudyard Kipling’s classic collection of jungle tales in which we first meet Mowgli, a child lost in the jungles of India and raised by a pack of wolves.

The jungle book illustrated