"Rikk-tikk-tikki-tikki-tchk "

A classic story from Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, adapted and illustrated by award-winning artist Jerry Pinkney, this is the tale of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, a fearless young mongoose.

Soon after a flood washes Rikki into the garden of an English family, he comes face-to-face with Nag and Nagaina, two giant cobras. The snakes are willing to attack Rikki, and even the human family who lives there, to claim the garden and house for themselves. But they do not count on the heart and pride of the brave little mongoose.

It came without warning, at the very hour his hand was outstretched to crumple the Holz and Gunsberg Combine. The New York doctors called it overwork, and he lay in a darkened room, one ankle crossed above the other, tongue pressed into palate, wondering whether the next brain-surge of prickly fires would drive his soul from all anchorages. At last they gave judgment.

At nine o'clock of a gusty winter night I stood on the lower stages of one of the G. P. O. outward mail towers. My purpose was a run to Quebec in "Postal Packet 162 or such other as may be appointed"; and the Postmaster-General himself countersigned the order. This talisman opened all doors, even those in the despatching-caisson at the foot of the tower, where they were delivering the sorted Continental mail.

In summer all right-minded boys built huts in the furze-hill behind the College-little lairs whittled out of the heart of the prickly bushes, full of stumps, odd root-ends, and spikes, but, since they were strictly forbidden, palaces of delight. And for the fifth summer in succession, Stalky, McTurk, and Beetle (this was before they reached the dignity of a study) had built like beavers a place of retreat and meditation, where they smoked.

'WHAT do you think she'd do if she caught us? We oughtn't to have it, you know, ' said Maisie. 'Beat me, and lock you up in your bedroom, ' Dick answered, without hesitation. 'Have you got the cartridges?' 'Yes; they're in my pocket, but they are joggling horribly. Do pin-fire cartridges go off of their own accord?' 'Don't know. Take the revolver, if you are afraid, and let me carry them.' 'I'm not afraid.' Maisie strode forward swiftly, a hand in her pocket and her chin in the air. Dick followed with a small pin-fire revolver.

The Portable Kipling contains selections from The Jungle Books and Soldiers Three; more than twenty stories, including "The Man Who Would Be King," "The Cat that Walked by Himself," "The Eye of Allah," and the unsettling "Mary Postgate"; more than fifty poems; and three essays. The volume also includes a complete chronology and a critical introduction by Irving Howe that permits us to see the formal achievements of Kipling's work as well as to enjoy its abundant pleasures--not least of which is the sheer satisfaction of great storytelling.

Beloved for his fanciful and engrossing children's literature, controversial for his enthusiasm for British imperialism, Rudyard Kipling remains one of the most widely read writers of Victorian and modern English literature. In addition to writing more than two dozen works of fiction, including Kim and The Jungle Book, Kipling was a prolific poet, composing verse in every classical form from the epigram to the ode. Kipling's most distinctive gift was for ballads and narrative poems in which he drew vivid characters in universal situations, articulating profound truths in plain...

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Accounts of a courageous youngster and formidable creatures of the Indian jungle abound in this series of 14 imaginative tales. Mowgli, a boy raised by a wolf pack, learns the lore of the jungle from its inhabitants; Rikki-tikki-tavi, a brave mongoose, defeats a deadly cobra; and more.