The Jungle Book

The Jungle Book was one of those rare books that I felt I was actually living as I read it – Michael MorpurgoThe original stories of The Jungle Book surpass all rollicking Disneyfied expectations. On one level, the Mancub’s education is pure entertainment; on another, the jungle is symbolic of Kipling’s philosophy of life, a moral playground in which the young learn to swing on the vines of life * The Times *The incantatory text of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Books still rewards reading aloud * Sunday Times *Around a century ago, Rudyard Kipling laid the foundations of modern children’s literature with works such as The Jungle Book, Just So Stories and Puck of Pook’s Hill. Far from the fusty Victorian conventions of the time, they were wild, magnificent stories that felt as though they’d always existed, stories people might have told each other in the caves * Daily Telegraph *So what makes these different to any other set of classics? In a moment of inspiration Random House had the bright idea of actually asking Key stage 2 children what extra ingredients they could add to make children want to read. And does it work? Well, put it this way…my 13-year-old daughter announced that she had to read a book over the summer holiday and, without any prompting, spotted The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas…and proceeded to read it! Now, if you knew my 13-year-old daughter, you would realise that this is quite remarkable. She reads texts, blogs and tags by the thousand - but this is the first book she has read since going to high school, so all hail Vintage Classics! * National Association for the Teaching of English *

Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay, India in 1865 to British parents. He was raised by a Portuguese nanny and an Indian servant, who entertained him with stories and Indian nursery rhymes. At the age of seven, he was sent to England and lived in a boarding house with a strict couple. He returned to India at 16 to work as a newspaper assistant editor in Lahore. He began publishing stories and poems, and achieved success with his book Plain Tales from the Hills. After his marriage, Kipling lived in America, where he wrote The Jungle Book. He later moved to England, where he wrote Just So Stories for his daughter Josephine, who died of pneumonia. Rudyard Kipling was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907 and died on January 18, 1936.

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