Publisher Description
Kimball O’Hara grows up an orphan in the walled city of Lahore, India. Deeply devoted to an old Tibetan lama but involved in a secret mission for the British, Kim struggles to weave the strands of his life into a single pattern. Kim and the holy man roam about India. Kim’s intimate knowledge of India makes him a valuable asset to the English Secret Service, in which he wins renown while still a boy.
Charged with action and suspense, yet profoundly spiritual, Kim vividly expresses the sounds and smells, colors and characters, opulence and squalor of complex, contradictory India under British rule. The book abounds in brilliant descriptions of Indian scenes and deeply sympathetic portraits of her people. Long recognized as Kipling's finest work, Kim was a key factor in his winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907.
Kipling’s classic novel is presented here in Enhanced E-Book format and includes the biographical essay “Who was Rudyard Kipling?”, an image gallery that pays tribute to the India-born author and a link to a free audio recording of ‘Kim.’
“A work of positive genius, as radiant all over with intellectual light as the sky of a frosty night with stars.”
—The Atlantic Monthly
*Image gallery.
*Includes essay “Who was Rudyard Kipling?”
*Link to free complete audio recording of 'Kim.'
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.
