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Step into the wildest adventure with J. R. Kipling’s The Jungle Book, illustrated by M. & E. Detmold. Follow Mowgli, a boy raised by wolves, as he discovers the art of survival and harmony among animals.

When Mowgli loses his parents to a vicious tiger attack in a deep forest in India, he is taken in by a pack of wolves. Adopted by the Wolf Mother Raksha and their leader Akela, young Mowgli learns to adapt to the jungle life and becomes best friends with Baloo the bear and Bagheera the panther, who know the ways of men well and will do anything to protect the boy.

But when Shere Khan, a tiger who hates humans with a passion, returns to hunt down Mowgli, Bagheera decides the boy should return to civilization. Mowgli is torn between leaving behind his beloved jungle and animal companions, but their adventures teach him valuable lessons about survival and life in the jungle.

When he reaches the nearby human village at last, Mowgli will have to make an impossible choice. Can he bid farewell to the animal friends he’s come to know as his family just to save his life?

Find out in this brand-new edition with exclusive features, including:

16 first-edition, high-quality illustrations by two of America's most talented illustrators, M. & E. Detmold.
A fun quiz to test your knowledge about Mowgli and the main characters with facts and trivia at the end of the book.
A brand-new cover design for your collection.
Carefully designed typesetting for comfortable reading for young and adult readers.

The Jungle Book is a timeless tale about friendship and the importance of respecting nature. Enjoy your own copy of this ode to nature’s wonders – an enduring masterpiece that has captivated readers across generations!"

Quoted material is from the book's Amazon sales page. Most of my review is in the "further comments" section, near the bottom.

The recommended reading age is 8-12 years old, but parents should definitely use discretion with sensitive children and I think anyone older could enjoy this book, especially nature and animal lovers.

It was a great book. The animal characters that embraced Mowgli were probably my favorite.

The violence, but I get that it was needed to tell the story.

Read the next one, which I didn't even know existed until I bought this one, but I have other books borrowed from the library that I need to read first.

Like I was experiencing Mowgli's adventures and perils.

About the author: "Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was born in Bombay in December 1865. He returned to India from England shortly before his seventeenth birthday, to work as a journalist first on the Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore, then on the Pioneer at Allahabad. The poems and stories he wrote over the next seven years laid the foundation of his literary reputation, and soon after his return to London in 1889 he found himself world-famous. Throughout his life his works enjoyed great acclaim and popularity, but he came to seem increasingly controversial because of his political opinions, and it has been difficult to reach literary judgements unclouded by partisan feeling."

It was a great read.

I decided to read this book because it met the requirements for the March 2025 round of Rach's Reading Challenge.

I was going to just borrow it from thelibrary, but I bought this book because my library's edition didn't include the original illustrations, and I wanted to see them, and it was worth the sale price (as of about twenty five minutes ago when I double checked) of ninety-nine cents was worth it to me to do so. Also, I thought I might want to read this book to my nephews in the future, so by owning it, I could just do so, instead of having to make sure the library's copy was available and borrowing it first.

I don't recall reading the original book before, though I think I did watch the Disney movie when babysitting someone with an extensive collection.

Weirdly, this book brought back memories of my boy cat, The Sandman, who passed last November. He absolutely loved watching cartoons, and his number one favorite is "The Bear Necessities" song from the old version of the movie. Of course, that song wasn't in the book (unless I somehow snoozed through it, haha, though that's doubtful).

Anyway, I really enjoyed the book. It engaged me enough to make a long drive to and from somewhere feel like a short one. It actually made me cry in a few spots, and cheer in more.

The best thing was learning that it was set in India, which I don't think I knew before. I have no idea why, but I'd assumed it was set in the Amazon. So now the names all make a lot more sense.

There are a lot of great lessons in this book about friendship, respecting elders, standing up for what is right, the value of learning and more.

Here are some of the details from the book's Amazon page that I found interesting or useful, copied and pasted at about 2pm on March 3, 2025:

"Print length ‏ : ‎ 193 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #165,544 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
#1 in Children's Australia & Oceania
#20 in Children's Prehistory Fiction
#138 in Children's Historical Fiction (Kindle Store)"

It's amazing to me that a fiction book first written in 1894 can be the number one best seller in a category (any category, but especially in any of the highly competitive Children's categories) today. So you can see that around the world, this is a very popular book.

I'm glad I read it and I would read it again.

Interested in buying this? Support Writing.Com by making your purchase of The Jungle Book (Illustrated): The 1894 Classic Edition with Original Illustrations   from Amazon.Com!

Created Mar 02, 2025 at 2:38pm • Submit your own review...