"To live is to be wild and various."

According to Mark Carnall, curator of the 500,000 specimens held in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, “many entomologists are now genitalia obsessed, examining specimens under the microscope and assessing whether the arrangement of penile bumps and hairs is a distinctive characteristic of a new species or not.”

Categorizing, classifying, ranking, apparently we can`t help ourselves. Make no mistake though, categories and classifications are never objective.

It can be a fun way to pass a wet Sunday afternoon (Wikipedia lists 28 genres of heavy metal music, all but 8 with numerous sub-genres), or simply a vanity project to get ones name on a new discovery. However,when we do it with books, the law of unintended consequences comes into force.

Which brings us to Into The Jungle, the latest foray into storytelling by Katherine Rundell. Richly illustrated by Kristjana Williams, it looks like a picture book and will probably be found in the children`s section of your local library or bookshop. Yet that is to put it in a straitjacket of genre which would do it a disservice and mean it could be easily overlooked by folk who would not normally stray into the children`s department.

The book is to be savoured even before it is opened, a gloriously produced, properly bound tome with a ribbon bookmark, the dustjacket resplendent with William`s illustrations and the legend “Stories for Mowgli” inscribed in clear, slightly raised white lettering which instantly demand to be caressed.
There are brief profiles of Rundell and Williams inside the cover but no big puff pieces, no extravagant reviews or prefaces or forewords. We are taken straight to the bold text, five origin stories for characters from the original Jungle Book written by Rudyard Kipling and published in 1894.

Nor, thankfully, are there pages of “comprehension” questions in the back. Increasingly, this has become an irritating feature of many children`s books as if without it readers can`t be trusted to have truly appreciated what they`ve read. Worse, it is creeping into stories intended for adults, often apparently aimed at book clubs, clearly unable to come up with their own discussion points.
No such patronising intrusion would have made it into Kipling`s original volumes and anyone who grew up in the company of Bagheera and Baloo, Kaa and Mowgli need have no fear of reading Rundell`s interpretation of their back stories. No Disneyfication here, only tales that swing along with joy and wit at the same time probing issues of belonging and identity. They also remind us of the old adage of nature being red in tooth and claw: there are few concessions to modern sensibilities.

The common thread that draws the stories together is Mowgli, seen first as an innocent and mischievous little boy who picks his nose and has to be reminded of his manners but is also fiercely loyal and brave and believes, as Bagheera has taught him, that “To live is to be wild and various”.

This is a theme Rundell returns to time and again in her writing. From Sophie in Rooftoppers to the wonderful Feodora in the magical Wolf Wilder, her characters take risks, spurn the mundane and the conventional, negotiating life in as energetic and honest a way as possible. Leavened always with humour and irreverence Rundell`s writing brings a breath of fresh air to our worried and safety obsessed world.

Best of all Into The Jungle could have been created to read aloud, surely the hallmark of excellent writing. Who would not want to take on the characters of Raksha the wolf and Shere Khan as they stare at each other, “eye to eye, teeth bared”, or Kaa, “a snake of unusual strength and beauty..with a ferociously unruly temper.” Coupled with the quite exquisite full page colour illustrations this is a book to become immersed in and to return to time and time again. And if it encourages someone to discover, or rediscover, Kipling`s stories, that can only be to the good.
In the end Into The Jungle is what a good book should be: entertaining and thrilling in equal measure, with a quiet insistence that the best happens when we behave in a brave, honourable and compassionate way.
It is not a child`s book, or a teen book, or an adult book. Nor is it a book of short stories or a book of animal stories. It is all of the above and more, the kind of thing everyone should be reading, regardless of age, gender, race or any other classification we can come up with.
Buy it for yourself. Buy it as a gift. It will stand the test of time. And when no-one is looking take it out of the children`s section and display it for all to see.