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I very much enjoyed reading this work by Kipling, however, I found the transition into the stories beginning with the white seal to be confusing. That is not to say I was not just as immersed in them as I was with the first part of the book, only that I did not feel what connection these stories had to the Mowgli of the book's beginning.

[Carol Reese]

If you read this on-line, I can understand your confusion. The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book were not novels, but collections of short stories, 15 in all, 8 of which were about Mowgli. As originally published, there were only 3 Mowgli stories in The Jungle Book. The other stories were about other animals, and in one case about a holy man and hi relationship with the animals.

The on-line stories at this site are listed like they are chapters, but the are not. Each story stands alone, even though some are about the same characters.

For most of the Jungle Book stories, Mr. Kipling starts with a quote or a short poem. (He does this with many of his other stories, too.) He then tells the story. And then, for most of the Jungle BOok Stories, he adds a bit of poetry, although they are called "songs." Of course, songs are usually poems set to music. On-line here, sometimes the first quotes and story are listed as a chapter, with the following song listed as another chapter, and at least one of the songs is missing.

There have been a number of collections of the Jungle BOok short stories published over the years. Sometimes they are only of the Mowgli stories, sometimes, they include all of the stories, and sometimes just some of the stories. Often, the publisher tries to put the MOwgli stories in a chronological order.

I don't mean to criticize this site, but when I looked at the Jungle Book on-line, I was a bit confused, too, because I really didn't expect to see "chapters." I've never seen them printed in book form as chapters, but only as short stories. .