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Mowgli's Song

From The Jungle Book, by Rudyard Kipling (1894)

This reader is taken from Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, first published in 1894. 'Mowgli's Song' appears after the chapter in which Mowgli kills Shere Khan, the tiger who has hunted him since infancy, and returns in triumph to the wolf pack—only to find himself rejected by both the human village and the jungle. Kipling was born in India and wrote extensively about the British Empire, colonialism, and the clash between cultures; his work is both celebrated for its narrative power and studied critically for its imperial assumptions. This text reflects its era; a few period terms have been modernised. The song is worth a senior reader's attention because it captures, in compressed poetic form, the anguish of double exile and the cost of belonging nowhere—an experience that resonates across contexts and centuries.

Band

Red · Complex language and analysisTypical starting range: ages 15–17

Length

long · about 1075 words in 3 sections · 2 pictures

Source

The Jungle Book, Rudyard Kipling

First published

1894

Regions

Canada · United States

Included formats

• · Web reader and PDF
• · EPUB for e-readers
• · Home-print sheet
• · Folded booklet
• · Binder edition (8.5 × 11)
• · Worksheet
• · Quick Check (10 questions) with answer key
• · Read-aloud script
• · Teacher’s Edition (members)

Readers are engineered from the original public-domain text with AI under HummingRead’s published canon and Content Philosophy, checked by automated audit and sampled by a person. Pictures are made with AI to HummingRead’s brief for each story. How a reader is made.

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