Mowgli in the Snow?

Thumbing through the reviews yesterday, I was most interested in two new novels about the years Rudyard Kipling spent in Vermont. Who knew? I sure didn't, although if I had read the Kipling entry at  Wikipedia, I would have. Kipling even wrote The Jungle Book while living there, in  Brattleboro.

At any rate, The Chicago Tribune  gives a favorable mention to Kitty and Mr. Kipling: Neighbors in Vermont, by Lenore Blegvad (illustrated by Erik Blegvad). Mary Harris Russell writes of this book for intermediate readers (ages 7-10):

Neighbor Kitty, who is 8 when the Kiplings arrive at a farm down the road, is curious about everything and dreams of a larger world. Lenore Blegvad does an excellent job of conveying how the native Vermonters feel their distance from the Kiplings, who, for instance, "dress for dinner" every evening.

Victoria Vinton's debut novel, The Jungle Law,  concerns the same era in Kipling's life, and Art Taylor at The Washington Post gives it high marks. Written for adults, The Jungle Law, like Kitty and Mr. Kipling, features a child at the center of the story.  Taylor says,

Vermont remains a far cry from the jungle of Mowgli, Bagheera and Shere Khan, but The Jungle Law traverses both worlds with ease and shows how the Law of the Jungle, which "all the animals followed in order to live peaceably side by side, in relative good faith and order," applies to people as well.

I believe that you'll need to register for both the Trib and the Post.

Comments

[Pat Yullick]

HELLO SUE DEAR !!
How is everything going?
I LOVE your site!
Give Junior a big twirl from me!
Love, yullick the bullock