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Shiv and the Grasshopper

From The Jungle Book, by Rudyard Kipling

This reader retells a song-poem from Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, first published in 1894. The text reflects its era; a few period terms have been modernised. The story comes from Hindu tradition and presents Shiv (Shiva) as the Preserver who provides for all creation. It is told here as literature, not devotion. The piece is worth a reader's time because it explores a large question — whether care can be truly universal — through a small, vivid image: a grasshopper hidden and fed. Kipling embedded the poem as a lullaby, and its testing, tender logic has outlasted its century.

Band

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

Length

long · about 1104 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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