Kim
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
Little Kim meets an amazing man, a Tibetan llama, who descended from the mountains to the plains of India in search of a wonderful river. The Lama is kind, modest, but full of knowledge and driven by the idea of the Way and Wheel of life. Kim immediately becomes sympathetic to him and joins the llama on his journey. Kim feels that he would like to understand this man, to know him, "to appropriate him." Kipling very accurately expresses complex feelings, so on each page you can wait for the phrase phrase.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Kipling's inspirational poem the one that begins, "If you can keep your head when all about you/ Are losing theirs" describes how to preserve one's honor by the principled avoidance of political and moral pitfalls. Italian artist Manna imagines the "you" of the poem as a boy journeying through a series of watercolor landscapes: fields under billowing clouds, misty nights, craggy mountaintops. To accompany the poem's first line, Manna paints the boy watching from a great green meadow as storm clouds approach; he stands and watches with a cool head, rather than running in fear. For "If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew/ To serve your turn long after they are gone," Manna shows the boy climbing a rocky pitch, the peaks of other mountains poking through the clouds below. Flying kites represent temptation, and dull-eyed marionettes represent allies who can't be trusted ("If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken/ Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools"). Though young readers may not fathom the poem's complexities, the grandeur of Manna's scenes conveys the loftiness of Kipling's sentiments. Ages 6 8.
