aliwhaley 's review for:

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

4.25

adventurous lighthearted fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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The star rating is for the Mowlgi stories

I adored this. The story that we think of as The Jungle Book with Mowgli and Bagheera and Baloo is just the first half of this, and it’s wonderful. I enjoyed the characterisations of the main three, and also the strict social rules and hierarchy of the Wolfpack. The description is great, the pace is great, and the law of the jungle is totally believable. It’s this sort of odd wisdom that isn’t quite allegorical because the animal laws are (of course) entirely different and often antithetical to our own, and yet still feels ‘wise’ to read. It is a kids book, but the prose is so good that it is still engaging as an adult 

I found the other stories a bit meh, the one with the roles of all the animals in the army was a bit didactic and boring but I liked the idea of ‘each to his own’, and I liked the young boy whispering with elephants.

I read this on the train to my training day in Birmingham