The Jungle Book & Second Jungle Book (Complete)

Some examples:

Original Version: Ye choose and ye do not choose! What talk is this of choosing? By the bull that I killed, am I to stand nosing into your dog's den for my fair dues? It is I, Shere Khan who speak!

Adapted Version: How dare you talk of choosing. I, Shere Khan, demand that cub.
***
Original Version: They fed me behind bars from an iron pan till one night I felt that I was Bagheera - the Panther - and no man's plaything, and I broke the silly lock with one blow of my paw and came away.

Adapted Version: After my mother died there, I broke the silly lock with one blow of my paw and escaped.

***
Original Version: He is a man, a man's child, and from the marrow of my bones I hate him!

Adapted Version: Remember, he is just a man.

****
Original Version: "Also, I paid for him with a bull when he was accepted. The worth of a bull is little, but Bagheera's honor is something that he will perhaps fight for," said Bagheera in his gentlest voice. "A bull paid ten years ago!" the Pack snarled. "What do we care for bones ten years old?"
"Or for a pledge?" said Bagheera, his white teeth bared under his lip. "Well are ye called the Free People!"

Adapted Version: And I paid for him with a bull when he was accepted into the pack," added Bagheera. "What do we care about a bull we ate ten years ago" snarled the young wolves. "What do you care about promise either?" snapped Bagheera.

And so on....

Virtually every paragraph is watered down like this. Was this done to make it easier reading for today's reading-challenged youths? Or to introduce PC to this classic (we obviously can't have any talk of "brown men", killing, hatred, or of fighting for principles). Whatever the reason, the entire flavor of the original is changed. Kipling was doing fine without the help.


Altering Kipling's prose?!   October 3, 2005
Robert Walker-Smith (Oakland, CA United States)
17 out of 17 found this review helpful

Just read the previous review (about 'simplifying' the
language in Jungle Book). I am reading the ORIGINAL
text JB to my eight year old son (for over a week now),
and he's not once indicated that the language puzzles
him. He did ask me why Mowgli uses thee and thou
and wouldst while talking with the animals, but
accepted my explanation without demur.

Reminds me of the lines from an Elinor Wylie poem
"Our mutable tongue is like the sea
Curled wave and shattering thunder-fit;
Dangle in strings of sand shall he
Who smooths the ripples out of it."
Say it out loud, and feel what it does to your
mouth and face - that's what Kipling's prose
does.


Learn the Jungle Law, it's still in effect   May 2, 1999
16 out of 18 found this review helpful

The story of Mowgli, a boy raised by wolves in the jungles of 19th century India, charmed me when I was young no less than it does today. Kipling wrote this to celebrate his love of India and it's wild animals as well as to show again some of his frequent themes of honor, loyalty, and perserverance. While his writing may seem 'dated' to some, to others the truths he includes rise above politics and 'current correctness'. Baloo the Bear, Shere Khan the Tiger, Bagheera the Panther, Kaa the Python were all childhood friends of mine, and reading these Jungle Book stories to your own children today will result in their exposure to such old fashioned concepts as sticking by your friends in adversity, helping your family, relying on yourself. Good lessons then, good lessons now. Mowgli learns the value of 'good manners' early on, learns that 'all play and no work' leads to unexpected troubles, learns that thoughtless actions can have devasting consequences. By showing Mowgli in an often dangerous 'all animal' world, we see reflections of modern human problems presented in a more subtle light. Kipling leads children down the jungle path into adventures beyond their day to day imagining and along the way, he weaves subtle points in and out of the stories, he shows the value of 'doing for yourself', of 'learning who to trust'. All of this in a tale of childhood adventure that's never been equaled. The book is over 100 years old now, and there are terms & concepts from the age of Empire that aren't 'correct' today. Parents can edit as needed as they read bedtime stories, but I've found that children learn early on that the world changes, and that some ideas that were popular long ago did not prove to be correct. Explaining this, too, is a part of parenting. Some of our current popular ideas may not stand the test of time, but I suspect that 100 years from now parents will still read the Jungle Book to their children. And the children will still be charmed, thrilled and instructed in valuable life-lessons.


A True Original   August 1, 2001
Kellyannl (Bronx, NY USA)
11 out of 18 found this review helpful

The Jungle Books are usually marketed as juvenile fiction. True, this is essential reading for children, but it's even deeper when you read it as an adult.

Although "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" and "The White Seal" are just as good as the least of the Mowgli stories, it is the various tales of the boy raised in the jungles of India that are - and justifiably - the heart of the collection.

As a baby, Mowgli is found and raised by a clan of wolves and three godfatherly mentors who each teach him about life in different ways - Baloo the Bear, who teaches him the technical laws he'll need to survive; Kaa the Python, the nearly archtypal figure who teaches him even deeper lessons; and Bagheera the Panther, who perhaps loves Mowgli most of all but understands all too well the implications of the ambiguous humanity of the boy he's come to care for.

The stories have it all, from the alternately humorous and frightening "Kaa's Hunting", where Mowgli learns an important lesson about friendship and it's responsibility, to the epic "Red Dog" that reads like something out of Homer, to "Letting in the Jungle" which, without giving anything away contains a disturbing paragraph that's both glaring and a long time in coming if you've read between the lines in the previous Mowgli stories and yet at the same time so subtle you can almost miss it's importance.

If you didn't read it as a child, read it now. If you did, read it again as an adult.


WELL BEYOND DISNEY   November 16, 2003
10 out of 11 found this review helpful

The Jungle Book

When we say "The Jungle Book" most of us invariably think of Disney's films, both animated and live action, that have become the norm for Rudyard Kipling's immortal children's stories. While the Disney interpretation is fun and enchanting, it makes a dramatic departure from the actual stories and takes considerable creative license in telling just a part of the Kipling stories. Even what we get from Disney falls considerably short of the applicable parts of Kipling's original that Disney used. What? Kaa, the snake, as Mowgli's friend and powerful ally? What? A deeper story of Mowgli's experience as a wolf and his relationships with Mother wolf and Father wolf? Oh yes, much, much more.

Kipling's original masterpiece also includes several other wonderful chapters about the continuing adventures of Mowgli and also adds the marvelous tale of "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi," the heroic mongoose whose battles with wicked cobras in an Indian garden easily matches Mowgli's showdowns with Shere Khan.

The book also includes the tale of "The White Seal." This short chapter of "The Jungle Book(s)" provides a wonderful commentary, in the form of animal parable, on human society, competition, male ego and human pride. Our hero, Kotick, the white seal, through his fearless explorations and his willingness to fight for a dream, changes the minds of his parents, his peers and his society for the better. The invitation to each of us is very clear to find and free the white seal that exists in all of us.

Don't get balled up in the notion that "The Jungle Book" is just for kids. A look beneath Kipling's wonderful prose reveals, like most great children's classics, that the author is using the unintimidating forum of children's literature to speak to kids of all ages with the hope that somehow we'll all finally get it.

Buy the book, read it, read it to the kids you know and learn the lesson.

Douglas McAllister