The Jungle Book – Rudyard Kipling

Rating: 3.5/5
Read between 7th of April,2016 to 9th of  April 2016

Edition Details:
Format : e-book
page count : 177

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.

When Raksha( mother wolf) sees a human baby near their cave she decides to raise him as a wolf. Shere khan comes to claim him but his advances are thwarted by the father and mother wolf. Shere khan goes for the time being but they know he will not leave this matter so easily. Will the baby be able to survive the life of jungle? Will the wolves accept him as their own?And will Sher khan be able to get to him eventually?

Man, what can i say about the book. When i was a kid i used to love the cartoon that was based on this book, but i had not yet read the book. So, when i got to know that a movie is going to release in first week of April i decided that it would be perfect if i would read the book before watching the film.
The book is a very short one. It’s more of a novella but it’s written beautifully. I got to know a lot of things about the characters that i didn’t earlier. For example in all theses years i didn’t have an idea that mowgli was not simply mowgli but mowgli the frog and that shere khan had an injured foot that had earned him  a nickname of lungri. The story was very readable and i enjoyed it.
Although  i found the final  face off between shere khan and mowgli to be a little anti-climatic. Apart from this my shere khan was this menacing character and mowgli fighting him was something akin to David fighting Goliath. But the story has a shere khan which more often comes across as a bumbling fool. The dread that shere khan of cartoon used to generate in me was missing in this shere khan.
If i have to sum up the book i would say it was an interesting read and all kids should read it. They’ll be able to enjoy is far more than adults. People like me who has seen shere khan( with a voice over done by Nana patekar) can feel a little disappointed to see our favourite villain depicted like a bumbling fool. There are songs in the book which were fun to read. I couldn’t help singing them in different voices.

Apart from the Jungle book this edition contains these short stories:

Seal Lullaby

First sentence:

All these things happened several years ago at a place called Novastoshnah, or north east point, on the island of st Paul, away and away in the Bering Sea.

Kotick was a white seal which made him an anomaly among the other seals. One day he comes across a group of seals who are being led my men to get butchered. Horrified as he is he decides to do something about it. What he does makes the rest of the story.
It was a good story showing how with  determination and persistence you can  finally achieve success. 

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

First Sentence:

This  is the story of the great war that Rikki-tikki-tavi fought single handed, through the bathrooms of the big bunglow in Seagowlee Cantonment.

Rikki tikki tavi was a mongoose whose ambition was to be a domestic pet. He soon achieves his goal when he’s taken in by an English family. He’s happy but the happiness doesn’t last long when he encounters a family of cobra in the garden. He needs to safeguard the family and for that he’ll have to fight the cobras. Will he be able to do that?

Toomai of the elephants

First Sentence

Kala Nag, which means Black Snake, had served the Indian Government in every way that an elephant could serve it for fourty-seven years, and as he was fully twenty years old when he was caught, that makes him nearly seventy- a ripe age for an elephant.

Little toomai wanted to be an elephant catcher like his father. But the father knew the difficulties of the job and wanted his son to have an easy and less dangerous job. When during the misson Little toomai does a reckless act he’s taken before Petersen,head of the elephant catching operations for Government. Petersen tells little toomai that he could be a elephant hunter when he’ll see the elephant dance. Well,till now  nobody has seen the elephants dance and so little toomai’s chances of becoming  a hunter seem doomed to him. Or are they?

Her majesty’s servant

First sentence

It had been raining heavily for one whole month- raining on a camp of thirty thousand men and thousands of camels, elephants, horses, bullocks, and mules all gathered together at  a place called Rawalpindi, to be reviewed by the viceroy of India.

It’s raining heavily in the Camp when a horse,bullocks,mule and elephant come face to face. They start having the discussions. What did they discuss, well you’ll read the story to find out.

It’s no doubt the Jungle book was the main attraction of this collection but these stories were also good. I liked reading them and i’m sure they’ll be fun read for any kid.
The book is in public domain so you can get a free copy.Here are the various links from where you can download the book:

Kindle

Manybooks

Gutenberg

If you’ve read the book tell me how did you felt about it.