Rudyard Kipling

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The Jungle Book

Just So Stories

A timeless collection of 21 tales for all ages

BBC Classics Children’s Library

A BBC Radio full-cast reimagining of the classic story

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation

The Man Who Would Be King

V&A Collector's Edition

Samuel West reads a selection of Just So Stories

The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows

<a href="https://shop.penguin.co.uk/collections/book-bundles-clothbound-classics/?&amp;utm_source=Penguin.co.uk&amp;utm_medium=Banner&amp;utm_campaign=Penguin_Clothbound_Series_26_06" target="_blank">Buy 3 classics for £33 on the Penguin Shop</a>

The Jungle Books

Ladybird Classics: The Jungle Book

<a href="https://shop.penguin.co.uk/collections/book-bundles-penguin-english-library/?&amp;utm_source=Penguin.co.uk&amp;utm_medium=Linked_text&amp;utm_campaign=Penguin_English_Library_Series_26_06">Choose 5 classics for £25 over on the Penguin Shop</a>

Stop What You’re Doing and Read…To Your Son: Just So Stories & Moonfleet

The Man Who Would Be King: Selected Stories of Rudyard Kipling

Plain Tales from the Hills

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The Jungle Book was one of those rare books that I felt I was actually living as I read it

The 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 incantatory text of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Books still rewards reading aloud

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

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

No man's cub can run with the people of the Jungle,' howled Shere Khan. 'Give him to me! 
 
When Father Wolf and Mother Wolf find a man-cub in the jungle, they anger the greedy tiger Shere Khan by refusing to surrender it to his jaws, and rear the child as their own. But when little Mowgli grows up, the pack can no longer defend him. He must learn the secret of fire, and with the help of his friends Bagheera the panther and Baloo the bear, he faces his nemesis at last. 
 
BACKSTORY: Learn about India’s jungles and the animals that live there!

A Special Edition from Johanna Basford

Learn the ways of the jungle with little Mowgli the man-cub. Swing from the trees, befriend the animals, face your primal fears

Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay in India in1865 to British parents, and brought by a Portuguese 'ayah' (nanny) and an Indian servant, who would entertain him with fabulous stories and Indian nursery rhymes. He was sent back to England when he was seven years old, and lived in a boarding house with a couple who were cruelly strict. Fortunately he returned to India aged 16, to work as the assistant editor of a newspaper in Lahore. He began publishing stories and poems and eventually had great success with his book Plain Tales from the Hills. After his marriage Kipling settled in America, and it was here that he wrote The Jungle Book. He then moved with his family to England, where he wrote Just So Stories for his daughter Josephine who tragically died of pneumonia. Rudyard Kipling was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907 and died on 18 January 1936.

The Jungle Book

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Rudyard Kipling

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