Book Review: The Jungle Book: Manga Classics

Title: The Jungle Book (Magna Classics) by Rudyard Kipling

Publication Date: April 28, 2017

Source: Netgalley

Purchase: Amazon, Book Depository

Summary on Goodreads: Heavily influenced by his childhood in British-ruled India, Rudyard Kipling created some of the most well-read children s stories in Western Culture. Book One of The Jungle Book(s) includes Mowgli s Brothers, the story of Mowgli, the abandoned man-cub who was raised by animals in the Indian jungle, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi the heroic mongoose, and Toomai of the Elephants, the tale of a young elephant-handler, and in The White Seal, we meet Kotick, a rare white-furred northern fur seal as he searches for a home where his family will not be hunted by humans. Originally published as a series of short stories for magazines in the late 1800s, the Nobel Prize-winning Rudyard Kipling would eventually publish the classic The Jungle Book in 1894." 

Book Review

I highly recommend this manga/book. Yeah, I said it from the start. This version of The Jungle Book hearkens back to the originals which don't focus on just Mawgli. You have a heroic mongoose, animals that are used both for burden and war and so on. Yet each story has your attention from beginning to end thanks to great writing and breath taking art/visuals. When you read about the effort put into this project at the back of the book, you see why. Everyone on this team wanted to create a new way for young readers to be introduced to Rudyard Kipling's original work but in a new style for the younger generation. I never read the original stories and only saw about three versions of the movie (including 2016's masterpiece in visual effects). Just remember that as a magna you have to read from left to right, therefore starting from where most of us would consider the back of the book. I got a free e-copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 5 Stars