The Jungle Book & The Second Jungle Book

The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book are collections of stories by Rudyard Kipling, most of which are set in the Indian jungle and feature animals who can talk. The most famous stories revolve around the adventures of an abandoned 'man cub' named Mowgli who is raised by wolves in the jungle. Other stories in the collections feature animals such as Rikki-Tikki-Tavi the mongoose, and Kotick the white seal. The Jungle Book introduces Mowgli, the human foundling adopted by a family of wolves. It tells of the enmity between him and the tiger Shere Khan, who killed Mowgli's parents, and of the friendship between the man-cub and Bagheera, the black panther, and Baloo, the sleepy brown bear, who instructs Mowgli in the Laws of the Jungle. The Second Jungle Book contains some of the most thrilling of the Mowgli stories. It includes Red Dog, in which Mowgli forms an unlikely alliance with the python Kaa, How Fear Came and Letting in the Jungle as well as The Spring Running, which brings Mowgli to manhood and the realisation that he must leave Bagheera, Baloo and his other friends for the world of man.