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mveatch6 's review for:
The Jungle Book
by Rudyard Kipling
I read this based on the recommendation of Neil Gaiman (he talks about it being an influence in his writing of The Graveyard Book, which is one of my favorites). Some of the influence is very clear, but Gaiman definitely goes his own way, especially since The Graveyard book is short stories that make one large overarching story, which is not the case with The Jungle Book. At first, I wasn't sure if I liked that-after the first hundred pages or so, Mowgli disappears from the story! But I really enjoyed some of the Mowgli-free stories, especially Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and Her Majesty's Servants. And I loved the songs included in the book. I should point out that apparently Mowgli reappears in the sequel, which I may have to check out.
This is definitely a book that will appeal to children in a lot of ways, but the language is definitely different that what you'd hear in a children's book today. It took me awhile to really get the hang of how everyone was talking. Also, there's some pretty gruesome jungle violence (I was particularly freaked out by a trampling/skinning incident, although a lot of kids are less squeamish about that sort of thing than I am). I'm really interested to see how the two new (and totally unrelated) movies adapt the Jungle Book. I didn't see much of the Disney cartoon version here.
This is definitely a book that will appeal to children in a lot of ways, but the language is definitely different that what you'd hear in a children's book today. It took me awhile to really get the hang of how everyone was talking. Also, there's some pretty gruesome jungle violence (I was particularly freaked out by a trampling/skinning incident, although a lot of kids are less squeamish about that sort of thing than I am). I'm really interested to see how the two new (and totally unrelated) movies adapt the Jungle Book. I didn't see much of the Disney cartoon version here.