'The Jungle Book' (1894) is a collection of stories by the English
writer Rudyard Kipling. In this book most of the characters are animals
such as Shere Khan the tiger and the Baloo the bear, though a principal
character is the boy or 'man-cub' Mowgli, who is brought-up in the
jungle by wolves. The stories are set in a forest in India, 'Seonee'
(Seoni), in the Madhya Pradesh. Mowgli learns how to live in the jungle
with the help of all of his animal family. Shere Khan tries to get the
younger wolves to keep out Mowgli and Mowgli realises it's time for him
to move on from his jungle family. Before Mowgli quits, Bagheera says
him to get the Red Flower from outside the house of a man. The animals
are too afraid to use the Red Flower, Mowgli hits Shere Khan with a fire
stick and afraids him away from the mountain. Mowgli then quits the
mountain and promises to return with Shere Khan's skin. After leaving
the mountain, Mowgli goes to the village where the people live. When he
gets to the village he is saved by a woman named Messua and her husband
who think that Mowgli is their lost son who was taken by a tiger. A
important theme in the book is desertion followed by fostering, as in
the life of Mowgli, copying Kipling's own childhood. It is the tale of
Mowgli and his adventures, his friendship with Bagheera, the black
panther and the wolf pack, and his enmity with Shere Khan, the tiger.
