The Campfire Classics adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book is an illustrated collection of most of the Mowgli stories from the 1894 volume and its 1895 sequel, The Second Jungle Book. It takes the story of the baby raised by the wolves from his discovery and acceptance by the wolf pack to his eventual return to the world of man at seventeen. It includes his abduction by the monkeys, his first venture into the world of man and the killing of Shere Khan, his return to the wolves and his struggle to save the pack from the wild red dogs. It is an adaptation that stresses the continuity of the stories, and would make an excellent introduction to the larger work.
Aimed at an older audience than something like the Disney film adaptation, the illustrations, except for those of Mowgli as a baby and the baby wolves, tend to avoid saccharine cuteness. Although never really threatening, friendly characters like Baloo, Bagheera and Kaa have a darker tone than their Disney counterparts. Illustrator, Amit Tayal, does a nice job conveying the gritty nature of the material without overplaying the blood and guts. There is violence, but it is kept to a minimum — violence is, after all, part of Kipling's story.
There are, of course, moral lessons to be learned from the stories. The narrative emphasizes the need for all groups to be ruled by law. Jungle law as it is explained by the animals is not the survival of the fittest. It is a system which guarantees all animals get what they need. "Good hunting all that keep the jungle law." The rule of law benefits the whole community. Those who live outside the law are the villains, and what is true for the animal should be true for man as well. Unfortunately Mowgli's first encounter with the community of man demonstrates that this might not always be the case. Kipling's anthropomorphic animals serve much better as models of behavior in a communal society.
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