In order to celebrate the launch of my 13th book, Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book for Kids, I put together a little “Did you know?” page. It’s different things we learned along the path of creating this melodramatic 15 minute play from the original works of Kipling’s The Jungle Book. Enjoy!
DID YOU KNOW?
1) Disney’s cartoon version of The Jungle Book didn’t follow Rudyard Kipling’s actual story, it was “inspired” more than “based” on the book
2) The Jungle Book is a collection of 7 short stories and 7 songs
3) Kipling wrote a play version of the The Jungle Book that was never published or produced onstage
4) The monkeys in The Jungle Book are called the Bandar-log. In Hindi, “Bandar” means monkey, and “log” means people. That’s why they are known as the “monkey-people”!
5) Rudyard Kipling was born in India, where the stories of The Jungle Book take place
6) Akela means “lone” or “solitary” in Hindi
7) Cub Scouts adopted the character of Akela (the wolf) as their symbol of leadership
8) The name Mowgli is a made up word that is supposed to mean “frog” in the stories
9) Mowgli is supposed to be pronounced “Mow-gli” with Mow rhyming with cow
10) Kipling’s father, John Lockwood Kipling, drew some of the illustrations used in the original magazine publications of The Jungle Book stories
11) Tabaqui, the jackal, is pronounced Tabarky and he made up this name himself
12) There is an actual Kipling Society where you can learn all about Rudyard
13) ‘Shere’ means “Tiger” in some Indian dialects. And Khan is a title; implying Chief of the Tigers
14) ‘Baloo’ is Hindi for “Bear”
15) ‘Bagheera’ is Hindi for, you guessed it, “Panther”
16) ‘Kaa’ is actually pronounced, “Kar”
17) Rikki-Tikki-Tavi is one of The Jungle Book stories
18) ‘Rikki-Tikki-Tavi’ is pronounced, “Rikky-tikki-tar-vi”
19) ‘Nag’ the snake is pronounced, “Narg”
20) Rudyard Kipling wrote a sequel to The Jungle Book called, The Second Jungle Book
21) There is no King Louie in the original book
22) Rudyard is his middle name: Joseph Rudyard Kipling
23) Rudyard Kipling was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907
24) The founder of the Boy Scouts personally asked Kipling’s permission to use names and images from The Jungle Book
25) Kipling admitted stealing some of the stories of The Jungle Book from other authors.
25 Facts about The Jungle Book was originally published on Shakespeare for Kids Books
Brendan's thoughts 