The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

Title: The Jungle Book

Author: Rudyard Kipling

Pages: 303

Finished: February 7, 2017

First Sentence: It was seven o’clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills 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.

Summary: It's difficult to summarize this book as it's really a collection of short stories. The first three follow our friend Mowgli. In the first one, we hear how he came to be in the jungle, and how he was ousted from the pack. The second story tells of his abduction by the monkeys. The third tells of how he came to the man village and how he killed Shere Khan. Following Mowgli's chapters are four other stories. One involves a white seal who spends the first seven years of his life looking for a place where he and his brethren can live without worrying about seal catchers. The next is the story of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, a mongoose who battles cobras in an Indian bungalow. Following that is the story of Toomai, a young boy who helps catch elephants for the army. The book ends with a story about the animals in the army discussing their various tasks.

Thoughts: If your only experience with The Jungle Book is with one of the four Disney movies, this book will surprise you. Now, I've been told there is a second Jungle Book with more Mowgli stories, so perhaps some of the things I was looking for are in those. But this book was missing many things that I wsa looking for. For example, King Louie doesn't exist. And Kaa is mostly interested in the monkies. ALSO, in almost all the movies, Baloo is lazy while Baghera is the one to take Mowgli's education in hand. That's reversed in the books.

Overall, I enjoyed the stories. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi was by far my favorite, primarily because we used to watch a cartoon version of this that, I believe, was word for word accurate with the dialogue!