The Jungle Book has 7 different stories in it. The first is “Mowgli’s Brothers,” which is about Mowgli, who grew up with wolves. The next is “Kaa’s Hunting,” and it is about how Mowgli used what he learned from Baloo and Bagheera to defeat the snake, Kaa. In “Tiger! Tiger!” Mowgli moves to a human village and he has to kill Shere Khan, the tiger, to prove his worth. The next 4 stories aren’t about Mowgli. “The White Seal” is about a unique white seal who looks for a safe island for the seals, away from human hunters. “Rikki-Tikki-Ravi” is about a mongoose who saves his human family repeatedly from cobras. “Toomai of the Elephants” is a boy who has a deep connection with elephants. “Her Majesty’s Servants” is about animals in a military camp who question why they fight with each other.

I have never read the original Jungle Book, so I didn’t know what to expect from this graphic novel. I watched the Disney version when I was little, but I don’t remember all the details.

I was confused when the story drifted away from Mowgli. I thought he would be more prominent in the story. The final four stories which were about different animals were a little disjointed. They didn’t relate to each other or the previous stories about Mowgli.

The one common theme that I found throughout the stories was animals versus humans. In some of the stories the animals worked with humans and sometimes they were against them. It was an interesting relationship that changed over time.

I was disappointed in this story. The pictures were good, but the stories just weren’t for me.

An amazing manga adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's "The Jungle Book." Having only read a little of "The Jungle Book" I was really surprised to see many other different stories in the book! The last story left me utterly confused but it made me laugh nonetheless.
The artwork was beautiful & the artist perfectly illustrated every scene. I highly recommend for reluctant readers, children 10 & up, and for anyone who loves a good manga!

A wonderfully illustrated version of Kipling's classic. I am a huge fan of classic children's literature and I enjoyed reading this graphic novel. I would like to look for more in this series as the drawings make the characters leap off the page.

This is a good introduction to this story for those who feel unable to tackle to full-text version and I will recommend this to my students.

I never knew there is more than Mowgli in Jungle book. When I started this book for first few pages I thought author and publishers have fooled us by giving normal jungle tales with Jungle Book tag. But I was proved wrong. A wonderful read indeed. I follow manga like Naruto, One Piece, etc. So I really like this adaption.

I actually haven't read the original classic but I have watched the movie. I didn't know that there were so many little stories in this book, but I did enjoy reading it as it was in manga form.

I liked how this manga presentation of The Jungle Book actually followed the real stories from the original book, including not just the story of Mowgli, but also Rikki-Tiki-Tavi, The White Seal, Toumai of the Elephants, and others. I wish they would make another one for Jungle Book 2 with even more stories!

The artwork is so beautiful, and really brings the characters to life! I loved seeing the facial expressions of Mowgli and Rikki-Tikki and the others, showing their fierce jungle spirit. The action was easy to follow, since each panel shows what is going on very clearly. Really well put-together and beautiful art!

Jungle Book has always been one of my favorite classics, so I came into this with some high expectations, and I was not disappointed! It can be difficult to organize a classic into a graphic medium, but the story flows along wonderfully with some of the original dialogue and poetry from the original book.
I really enjoyed revisiting this classic in graphic novel form!

Disclaimer: I received an ecopy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a free and honest review. All the opinions stated here are my own true thoughts, and are not influenced by anyone.

I was so thrilled when I saw a new Manga Classics was out! I love this series and have read them all. Jungle Book excited me as 1) I've read the original and 2) these are short stories, something the series has not done before. The art is just as magnificent as on previous volumes and the author notes on adapting the original at the back are as illuminating as ever. This series stay as close to the originals as possible only adding artistic license where necessary to adapting a printed word novel to an illustrated manga format. The Jungle Book succeeds and presents a well-told version of the original seven stories: 4 featuring Mowgli and three others. The Mowgli stories aren't exactly chronological but they flow nicely told together and of the three stand-alone stories Rikki-Tikki-Tavi is my favourite as it is in the original. Be warned though that this (and others in the series) are sourced from the original material, not anything like its Disney counterpart. I don't think the short story format works as well in manga as it does in text so this is not my favourite of all the books (Great Expectations and Scarlet Letter probably are) but this is well done, nevertheless, and will encourage readers to pick up Kipling's classic if they have not already.

I grew up watching the animated Disney version of the The Jungle Book and just read the original book a few months ago. It was very different from the movie and actually includes several short stories about different characters. In my opinion, some of those stories were great, but as in most short story collections others were less impressive. This book is a wonderful adaptation of those original stories and stays true to their details. I truly enjoyed the same stories that I enjoyed in the original, and thought the others were well told in this format. The art added a great layer to the stories and represented the characters well.

A great reading and a beautiful manga version to look at!

The Jungle Book is a collection of stories about Mowgli, the boy raised by animals in the Indian jungle and the stories of several animals in their own unique adventures.

I’ve read the original stories many years ago and it was refreshing to go through them again in such a light way. The drawings are magical and the original stories didn’t lose any of their charms or sense. Being a fan of the Disney version of the novel, I could almost hear the songs in my head as the respective characters came to play, such as Mowgli and the elephants.

On the contrary of the other manga classics published so far, this graphic novel can also be read to children. The language is easy to understand and the illustrations are very appealing and pleasant to look at.

A delight to read, this manga version is a treat!

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 breathtaking 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 manga 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.

I don't know that I've every actually read the original book. Or, for that matter, seen the Disney movie. SO I can't speak directly to the translation here. I can say that it plays well as manga. Chan does a great job with facial expressions and body posture, conveying emotions regardless of the species. The storytelling is largely clear as is the progression of panels. If I have one complaint its that it's a bit on the wordy side. The seal story in particular is over-narrated.

From my Mountain Times (Boone, N.C.) monthly roundup:

A potboiler from Chicago, a translation of Sweden’s ‘best crime novel,’ a graphic adventure set in both India and India ink, and three from North Carolina (one for those over 21 and two for the kids) round out a fresh crop of books just in time for a break from your spring planting.

‘The Black Book’ by James Patterson and David Ellis

In a variation on the theme of a locked-room mystery, Bill Harney — a good Chicago cop who, like his twin sister, followed in the footsteps of their chief of detectives father — wakes up in the hospital following an apparent love triangle murder in which Harney is assumed both victim and culprit.

Working backward and forward through the novel, Patterson weaves an aggressive cast of characters while spinning his “can’t miss” brand of storytelling. Astute fans of both Patterson and the genre will figure out the whodunit, but the rest of us will keep turning the pages as fast as we can.

“The Black Book” (Little, Brown) is written for a modern audience that prizes visual, quick-paced storytelling: Patterson’s 418-page novel contains 109 chapters, most ending in a cliff-hanger designed to drive the reader forward. The style works and fans of Patterson won’t be disappointed in what the author says (in large, bold type on the book jacket) is “the best work I’ve done in twenty years.”

With 176 books to his credit (if a reviewer counted right on the author’s website), that’s a hard claim to dispute — but one made harder by the sheer force of this novel.

‘Quicksand’ by Malin Persson Giolito, translated from the Swedish by Rachel Willson-Broyles

“Quicksand” (Other Press) may be a novel originally written in Swedish, but it’s a story that will lose nothing in translation for a generation of readers who devoured sagas such as “Twilight” and stories such as “The Fault in our Stars.” Not that Malin Persson Giolito’s award-winning story (named 2016 Best Swedish Crime Novel by the Swedish Crime Writers Academy) contains vampires or (physically) sick teens — far from it. It’s that the 18-year-old narrator, Maja Norberg, is at the center of a mass shooting that has taken place at a prep school in Stockholm’s wealthiest suburb, and it’s her telling of the story that will appeal to both a pop audience and fans of a trial mystery.

With her boyfriend and best friend dead, Norberg opens the novel with her first day in court — on trail for her part in the crimes. Is she guilty? The story flows in and out of the courtroom to the bits and pieces of her life before the shootings that Norberg releases on the way to the novel’s denouement.

Readers looking for pure mystery may get bogged down in the teen angst, but the story is clever enough to keep you wanting to know just a little bit more — all the way to the end.

‘Still & Barrel: Craft Spirits in the Old North State’ by John Francis Trump

With the rise of speciality craft beers in the High Country and just about everywhere else in North Carolina, John Francis Trump’s nonfiction “Still & Barrel: Craft Spirits in the Old North State” (John F. Blair, Publisher) is treatise on North Carolina alcohol manipulation that hits the spot.

Trump’s work does a fine job of tracing legal spirits in North Carolina from its more extra-legal beginnings (without failing to mention Wilkes County’s once-upon-a-time dubbing as the moonshine capital of the world, including Junior Johnson’s role in the enterprise), but it must be admitted that that’s been done before.

What hasn’t been done before is the creative narrative Trump offers in bringing us from those days to the industry’s current artisan luster. The author profiles 36 North Carolinian distilleries, from moonshine to Caribbean-style rum, from the mountains to the coast. A generous use of original-period photographs throughout helps complete the journey.

'The Wise Animal Handbook' and 'Lucky to Live in North Carolina' by Kate B. Jerome

New this month from Arcadia Kids publishing are two from acclaimed children’s author Kate B. Jerome. Both books center on North Carolina, but the real magic is a refreshing use of art — whether it’s the eye-grabbing photos of “The Wise Animal Handbook” or the clever illustrations of “Lucky to Live in North Carolina” — coupled with Jerome’s “you haven’t read this before” poetry aimed at the young crowd.

That both books are “Read Together, Do Together” projects set in a sturdy large-format hardcover binding means that the $16.99 cover (steeply discounted by several booksellers) is worth the price of admission. These are books both you and your 4-year-old will treasure two decades hence.

'The Jungle Book' by Rudyard Kipling adapted by author Crystal S. Chan and illustrator Julien Choy

Stories of animals raising human children in the wild continue to fascinate us long after Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Book” was first published in 1894. Although it was largely discredited less than a month ago, in an April 7 Washington Post news story, the idea that “amid a troop of monkeys in the Katraniaghat forest range in northern India roamed a naked human girl, playing with the primates as if she were one of them” captured our imaginations as the girl inevitably drew “comparisons to Rudyard Kipling’s Mowgli, a feral child from Seoni, India, featured as the prominent character in Kipling’s ‘The Jungle Book.’” And seemingly just as that story broke, we have a new version of “The Jungle Book,” wonderfully done in Manga by Udon Entertainment that published April 3.

Perhaps drawing on the inspiration of the “Great Illustrated Classics” series that, for a generation of tweens, were simply a lot more fun (and easier!) to read than the originals, Udon’s “The Jungle Book” is the most recent addition to its Manga Classics lineup (among other titles are “Sense and Sensibility,” “Great Expectations” and “Les Miserables”).

Done as Manga with superb graphics, clear instructions for those uninitiated to the format (back to front, right to left) and author explanatory notes on adapting the original, including its poems, Udon’s classics are just as much fun today as the Great Illustrated Classics were for those who grew up reading their comic novels via flashlight under the bed covers.

Manga adaptation of the Kipling, with all the attendant daft artwork that promises. It shows how Disney played very fast and loose with the original, and also why much of the other stories haven't been anything like as popular. So-so.

I read the original book two years ago and absolutely loved it, so when I saw on NetGalley that they turned it into a Manga Classic, I just had to have it. I love these Manga Classics, seriously, I read all of them and they are just such a fun and easy way to read those classics.

I love that the song parts were included in the manga, cause they were such a fun part in the actual book. Also once again, the story with the white seal was on the top of my favorite stories, even though I truly love all these stories.

The artwork was amazing as expected.

I can't recommend these Manga Classics highly enough.

This book is so much fun to read. If you grew up with the classics, or even if you just enjoy the movies, you will probably enjoy this collecition of Rudyard Kipling's stories in manga form. The artwork was expressive and clearly defined each scene as the characters remained at the forefront.

Sidenote: Rikki Tikki Tavi is my favorite story of this collection.

I've never read The Jungle Book, but I did watch the movie! I feel like this is the most prepared that I've been when reading one of these manga classics. Anyhow, the movie is very different from the book so, I ended up not being prepared at all lol. At least I knew some character names?

This adaption went really well, I thought, and the art of course is beautiful as always. Besides the main story line there are other stories as well-- all that revolve around animals, and the animal drawings were done well! Everything was pleasant to look at, even if some of the stories didn't make sense (looking at you elephant rider).

All in all, it was a fun read and quite nostalgic. I think I will go re-watch the movie soon. I would recommend this one more for children, because of the animal stories, and for people wanting some nostalgia for when they read/watched this story before.

If you are used to the style of Manga, this book shouldn't take you too long to get your head around. I studied Japanese in university (as a minor subject) and first became interested in Manga then. Traditionally, they read books from right to left, and therefore from back cover to front cover, in Japan, so this style of reading isn't new to me and didn't cause me any major concern. However, if you are new to Manga this can be a little off-putting, as not only do you read the pages from back cover to front cover, but you also read each little strip from right to left. So, essentially, you are reading backwards. But don't let that put you off: Manga is an interesting and entertaining art and you can find some great titles both here and abroad to enjoy.

Okay, so I was under the illusion, like many I am sure, that the story of The Jungle Book was exclusively about the life of the boy Mowgli. I now know this to be not the case. Rudyard Kipling's stories for children were actually heavily influenced by his childhood in British-ruled India and encompassed so much more than an account of the abandoned man-cub who was raised by animals in the Indian jungle. Some of the stories in this edition, adapted in the Manga style by Crystal S. Chan, are about Mowgli, but some stories are about different creatures altogether. Here we are presented with a story about a rare white-furred northern seal searching for a peaceful home where his family will not be hunted by humans; a story about a heroic mongoose; one about Toomai of the Elephants and a young elephant-handler; and there's a story about different animals who are ordered to do as humans wish them to. It really is so much broader than just a recounting of the tale of the famous Mowgli.

This edition also features some of the original poetry included in Kipling's original series of short stories, used here to separate the different tales. I thought these were incorporated quite well into this book and I enjoyed reading them. I also enjoyed the illustrations, although I have come across much better in some of the other Manga titles I have explored. It was still a very enjoyable way to read The Jungle Book: I loved seeing the story come to life in this way. I enjoyed reading about the animal characters and did become immersed in their stories. It was quite an enchanting read and very unique. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who is a fan of graphic novels or Manga specifically, but would pre-empt my recommendation by highlighting that this isn't the Disney story retold: this is the original Kipling work in a new light. Reimagined, if you will.

3.75 Stars
Kudos for following along the general storyline of the original work! I love seeing classics retold in a new way to encourage readers to seek these stories out, especially in such a different way. The illustrations are fun and enchanting and vary from the other artwork in this series. It's all good, but The Jungle Book has more animals and less people as characters. The setting is completely unique too. I was fascinated by the white seal and mongoose stories. Looking forward to the next Manga Classics release.

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I just love these Manga Classics!
I love how the drawings bring classic stories to live.
The Jungle Book is a long time favorite of mine and reading and seeing this manga was just beautiful.
I simply love all of the Manga Classics I read so fear, just because they make reading classics so much easier for everyone.