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The Penguin English Library features the best novels in the English language. Get lost in the amazing stories, browse the Penguin English Library. |
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Product Description
Mowgli, the man-cub who is brought up by wolves in the jungles of Central India, is one of the greatest literary myths ever created. As he embarks on a series of thrilling escapades, Mowgli encounters such unforgettable creatures as Bagheera, the graceful black panther, and Shere Khan, the tiger with the blazing eyes. Other animal stories range from the simple heroism found in 'Rikki-tikki-tavi' to the macabre comedy 'The Undertakers'. A rich and complex fable of human life, Kipling's enduring classic dazzles the imagination with its astonishing descriptive powers and lively sense of adventure.
About the Author
Rudyard Kipling, (1865-1936), English short-story writer, novelist and poet. Kipling was the first Englishman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature (1907). His most popular works include The Jungle Book (1894) and the Just So Stories (1902), both children's classics though they have attracted adult audiences also.
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It was seven o'clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills3 when Father Wolf woke up from his day's rest, scratched himself, yawned, and spread out his paws one after the other to get rid of the sleepy feeling in their tips. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
It was seven o'clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills3 when Father Wolf woke up from his day's rest, scratched himself, yawned, and spread out his paws one after the other to get rid of the sleepy feeling in their tips. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
32 of 33 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Having been of the target age when Disney's enterpritation of the stories of Mowgli game to the big screen I decided to track the source of the magical tale. This book doesn't just contain the stories that follow Mowgli's adventures in the jungle, and quite different to the Disney version they are, but many other exciting tales, everyone captivating for its entirety. Whether it is the moral issues that are raised throughout the stories, or simply the value of a great story that you are after, this book has truely stood the test of time with shining colours.
33 of 36 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Kipling has long since ceased to be a fashionable writer. Accused of being racist (for his time, class and background he was in fact highly liberal in his views) and jingoistic (he lived the days when loyalty to Queen and Country was still called patriotism), he has fallen out of favour with the literati. Despite decades of continual snubbing, his books live on and his poem, IF was recently voted by the British public as their favourite, unashamedly sentimental it may seem now but it still stands as some of the best advice a father could give to his son, which was how and why it came to be.
His books also have that ultimate mark of any classic, the ability to be enjoyed as much by grown-ups as by children. The jungle book is most probably familiar to the world now through the Disney cartoon, which bears all the relationship to the original book as Muppet Treasure Island does to Robert Louis Stevenson. The real book is much darker, much more dangerous, much more exciting and much, much more enjoyable. Kipling takes anthropomorphism to its artistic ultimate and, within the cadre of jungle animals reflects human characteristics both good and bad: the sagacity of Baloo, the wisdom of Bagheera, the nobility of Akela, the independence of Kaa, the rottenness of Shere Khan and the mindless brutality of the Dhole. Humans, by contrast, fare rather poorly being divorced from their surroundings and, unlike the jungle characters, are shallow and act with neither motivation beyond self-interest nor principle.
So impressed was Lord Baden Powell that he made this book the basis for the cub scouts (as he did with another of Kipling's masterpieces, Kim for the scouts themselves). The books may contain Victorian values, but these are the best of Victorian values and the ones that define a civilized society, even if they, like Kipling, have become unfashionable. Above all though, the Jungle Book is a ripping yarn, a page-turner, a plot-boiler and, uniquely amongst Kipling's prolific output, a spawner of sequels; something that Walt Disney obviously recognised. The only words of warning or discouragement that I would utter is that the book, as with all the Mowgli stories, can be quite sinister and not suitable for the same age range as the cartoon and, speaking of the cartoon, be prepared to despise its fluffy, trite Americanised bowdlerisms forever once you have read the original; so, if you adore Disney and want to go on loving it, perhaps you should stay away from the literature from which it stole its ideas.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Legends are made from legends. Rudyard Kipling dug deep into the tales of the jungle from his years living in India, and drew from them the kinds of stories that live forever.
"The Jungle Book" is more than how Mowgli, the man cub, learns to live and survive amongst enemies like Shere Khan. The intense mongoose vs cobra "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi," also well-known, is here, as are several lesser-known and unrelated adventures.
Richly written, with details and contexts unfamiliar to Western readers, "The Jungle Book" lifts imagination and language beautifully. Poetic, and written in a literary style, it shines above most modern prose.
This is the stuff of afternoon stories read to older boys and girls. Young teens will while away rainy evenings, unwilling to part until finished. Sometimes scary and always exciting, Kipling also uses the book to teach lessons much greater than a jungle in India.
When chapters were first read to me many years ago, I listened gawk-eyed, listening intently for as long as my mother would read. I read it with different eyes now, but no less a young boy as I worry how Baloo will handle the Bandar-Log monkeys.
It isn't perfect. A few scientific details are fudged (wolf pack breeding structure, for example), but nothing that matters in the big picture. Kipling will have you in the palm of his hand, even though it was first published over 100 years ago.
May "The Jungle Book" by Rudyard Kipling be as amazing to you as it has been to me.
--Brockeim
"The Jungle Book" is more than how Mowgli, the man cub, learns to live and survive amongst enemies like Shere Khan. The intense mongoose vs cobra "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi," also well-known, is here, as are several lesser-known and unrelated adventures.
Richly written, with details and contexts unfamiliar to Western readers, "The Jungle Book" lifts imagination and language beautifully. Poetic, and written in a literary style, it shines above most modern prose.
This is the stuff of afternoon stories read to older boys and girls. Young teens will while away rainy evenings, unwilling to part until finished. Sometimes scary and always exciting, Kipling also uses the book to teach lessons much greater than a jungle in India.
When chapters were first read to me many years ago, I listened gawk-eyed, listening intently for as long as my mother would read. I read it with different eyes now, but no less a young boy as I worry how Baloo will handle the Bandar-Log monkeys.
It isn't perfect. A few scientific details are fudged (wolf pack breeding structure, for example), but nothing that matters in the big picture. Kipling will have you in the palm of his hand, even though it was first published over 100 years ago.
May "The Jungle Book" by Rudyard Kipling be as amazing to you as it has been to me.
--Brockeim
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
"We be of one blood, thou and I."
Without India, there would not have been a Kipling, and without the Raj, there would not have been an India. Like Mowgli, Kipling grew up between two worlds. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Oliver Twist
Good for children and better than disney but meh
I got this book beacuse I was a fan of the disney films but usually find that the original stories are better. Read more
Published 18 months ago by P. Gyambibi-barnett
This is the hour of pride and power
I bought this book years ago for my kids to read (or for me to read to my kids), and somehow neither they nor I ever got around to it. Read more
Published on 12 Mar 2010 by A. Willard
More to This Book Than You Think
Most people will be familiar with this story, and will know why it is a classic. On the other hand, they may have not read the original version with the additional tales and... Read more
Published on 7 Sep 2009 by Sir Furboy
Enjoyable and well-written
This is a collection of short stories, mostly about Mowgli and his adventures in the jungle, but also about seals, mongoose and other animals. Read more
Published on 2 Aug 2009 by Blackbeard
Man's red flower!
"Man goes to man, in the end." Poignant, endearing, at times brutal, The Jungle Book pressed all my buttons. Read more
Published on 7 Dec 2007 by Isaac Frankle
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