Rating: ***** 5 stars

Rudyard Kipling, illustrated by Nicola Bayley,
The Jungle Book.
Walker, 2005.

Walker have created a typically striking edition of Kipling's hard-edged fantasy of a boy reared by wolves under the rule of the austere Law of the Jungle. Readers who are familiar only with the Hollywood version now have the opportunity to savour the strange and powerful rhythms of Kipling's prose and poetry, accompanied by a wealth of vivid illustrations.

Nicola Bayley provides a visual commentary on Mowgli's upbringing which is as varied and dramatic as the adventures themselves.  The classic episodes (the wolf councils, the tutelage of Baloo and Bagheera, the struggle with Shere Khan and its final bloody resolution, the troubled return to the human sphere) are all depicted in small, richly detailed paintings nested into the text in various configurations.  Some of the adventures are accompanied by series of miniatures no larger than postage stamps, while the poems and story endings are decorated with elegant pencil drawings of the jungle creatures.  Colours of foliage, fur and earth predominate.  The pages themselves are subtly mottled, with rangoli-like borders and endpapers.

This is a beautiful book, both textually and graphically.  The moral issues embedded in the stories themselves remain as powerful as ever.

George Hunt
September 2005, No. 154

Guide to the rating system: ***** 5 stars, unmissable
**** 4 stars, very good
*** 3 stars, good
** 2 stars, fair
* 1 star, poor