The Jungle Book door Rudyard Kipling

Publisher: Piccolo
Number of pages: 181

Summary

Mowgli’s brothers, Kaa’s Hunting, Tiger! Tiger!
Father and Mother Wolf save a man-cub from Shere Khan, the limp tiger, who wanted to eat him. The Pack Council decides to keep Mowgli and to protect him. After ten seasons Akela, their leader, is beaten in a fight and Shere Khan takes his place as leader of the Seeonee Wolf-Pack. Shere Khan sets up the other wolves against Mowgli and they ban the man-cub out of the Jungle.
Some seasons before he was banned, Mowgli was thought the Law of the Jungle by Baloo, the brown bear. When Baloo, Bagheera, the black panther who sometimes accompaigns the lessons, and Mowgli lay down to do a nap, the monkey-people kidnap the child. The monkey-people are the Bandar-log: every one ignores them because they have no law and no manners. Baloo and Bagheera ask Kaa, the snake, to help them get Mowgli back, because Kaa is the only animal where the monkey-people are afraid of. They succeed.
When Mowgli arrives in the village near the wood, the people think he is Messua’s lost son. He integrates well in the village and after a while, they let him herd the cattle and the buffaloes. One day, Grey Brother and Akela, two wolves, warn him for Shere Khan, who still wants to kill him as he swore years ago. Mowgli uses the cattle and the buffaloes to beat Shere Khan when he has just eaten. The people of the village think he is a wizard because he has beaten the limp tiger and they cast him out just like the Seeonee Pack did. Mowgli returns to the jungle with the skin of Shere Khan and all his friends are happy to see him back.

The white seal
Kotick, the only white seal, discovers that men are killing seals at his place of birth Novastshnah. He wants to find a place for seals without men. He searches for five years and finally Sea Cow shows him a hidden paradise where all the seals can live and no man will ever find it.

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi was a mongoose which accidently arrived in an Indian family. It saved their lives by killing three snakes in the garden of that family.

Toomai of the Elephants
Little Toomai will become a mahout, just like his ancesters. Petersen Sahib tells him he may go to the Keddahs when he has seen the elephants dance, which no man has ever seen. But that night Kala Nag, his elephant, takes Little Toomai in his back and the boy sees all the elephants dance. Now he is called Toomai of the Elephants and he will become a great tracker.

Her Majesty’s Servants
Thirty thousand men, thousends of camels, elephants, horses bullocks and mules are all gathered at a place, called Rawolpundi, near Afghanistan. It has been raining for a whole month and one night, just before the parade, the animals escaped. They had a discussion about why they obey orders. After the parade, the answer was: there was an order and they obeyed.

Protagonist
Mowgli acts like an animal, because he was raised by animals. He doesn’t hunt himself, but he drives the preys to help the other animals hunt. He also helps the other animals by picking thorns out of their paws.
He was thought the Law of the Jungle by Baloo, but he isn’t greatful to him, because he always hits Mowgli softly when he says something wrong. Mowgli has to learn the Master-words to get help in all the languages of all the animals of the Jungle.

Where? When?

The story takes place in India at the end of the nineteenth century.

Subjectmatter

The book acts about special animals that help people.

Vocabulary

To rumble: to make a low continuous sound (rommelen)
Trunk: elephant’s long flexible nose (slurf)
To nag: to criticize or scold persistently (vitten, treiteren)
Masonry: stonework (metselwerk)
To scold: to rebuke, to give an expression of condemnation for a fault or offence (een uitbrander geven)