Description de l’éditeur
The orphan Kim, whose father was an Irish soldier, makes his living by begging on the streets of Lahore and running errands. An aged Tibetan Lama is on a journey to find the mythical "River of the Arrow" and in doing so free himself from the Wheel of Things. Becoming his disciple, Kim joins the Lama to travel along the Grand Trunk Road. But Kim also gets himself involved in the Great Game, Russia and Britain's political conflict in Central Asia, and is given a task by the British - to carry a message to Umballa's British commander.
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.
