The Third Jungle Book



The Third Jungle Book by Pamela Jekel (ISBN 1-879373-22-X, 1992), originally illustrated by Nancy Malick, is a collection of new stories about Mowgli, the feral child character, and his animal companions, created by Rudyard Kipling and featured in Kipling's The Jungle Book (1894) and The Second Jungle Book (1895).

The stories are written in an accurate pastiche of Kipling's style, although Jekel sometimes allows a modern American phrase to slip through. Jekel's plotting also frequently includes references to animal behaviour and anatomy that were not a feature of Kipling's original stories.

Chronologically the stories begin some time after the first half of "Mowgli's Brothers" when the infant Mowgli is being taught jungle law and customs, and end after the events of "In the Rukh", when Mowgli is married and raising a child but still keeping in touch with his animal friends.

Some of the stories are inspired by Kipling. "Where the Elephants Dance" is clearly based on Kipling's "Toomai of the Elephants", while "The Mad Elephant of Mandla" and "Jacala, Tyrant of the Marsh" are both based on single sentences in Kipling's "Red Dog" in which Kipling mentions some of Mowgli's adventures that he did not intend to write. The book sparks a few plotholes, namely, in Where the Elephants Dance , one of Hathi's sons is captured and taken to the man-village, but this takes place before several of Kipling's stories where all three of Hathi's sons are present.

Stories

 * Fire in the Jungle
 * Where the Elephants Dance
 * The Porcupine and the Poison People
 * Gargadan, the Great Rhino
 * In the Cave of Badur
 * Bagheera and the Spring Hunt
 * The Mad Elephant of Mandla
 * Jacala, Tyrant of the Marsh
 * The Ghost Tiger
 * Master of the Jungle