The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling ****

I've never read The Jungle Book before--it was pretty good! I was bracing myself to read some of Kipling's notorious racist comments, but I didn't really encounter anything overtly bad. In the context of when it was written, it seemed fairly tame to me. I'm sure Kipling made his infamous opinions known in other works of his, but this one seems to be just typical of it's time.
The best part of this book was reading Riki-Tiki-Tavi. Puppy has watched the cartoon of this many many times, so I knew the story well. I was amazed by how true to the story Chuck Jones stayed when he made the cartoon--it's almost verbatim!
At this point in the book Puppy came up to me & asked what I was reading. I told him, & he insisted I read it to him. So I did. And then I had to read it to him again. And then one more time. He loved to hear it read, I think because he already had the pictures for it in his mind. It was neat to see how happy he was to totally understand every word he heard. I wonder if I can't find some other books that have been made into cartoons that I could read to him after he's seen them. It really seems to help with his comprehension.
Overall, a good book written mostly from different animals' points of view. Kipling had a wonderful way of portraying animals so people could understand them. I recommend it to anyone who hasn't read it before.