Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay in India in 1865. The Indian city of Bombay is now called Mumbai. He was born near the end of 1865, on the 30th of December. He lived in India for the first six years of his life. Then his parents sent him to England. He didn’t like England because it was cold and dark. Rudyard dreamed of going back to India.

Rudyard finished his school and travelled back to India when he was 17 years old. He found a job as a reporter working for English language newspapers in India. Rudyard wrote newspaper reports about things which happened in India but he wanted to write stories and poems. He finished his first book of poems, Departmental Ditties, in 1886 when he was 21 years old.

He started to write short stories for the newspaper and soon his stories were very popular. Lots of people liked to read his stories and Rudyard Kipling became famous in India. A lot of his stories were about the lives of soldiers and their families in India.

Rudyard Kipling also liked to write stories for children. In 1894, he wrote The Jungle Book [Penguin Readers ref]. The Jungle Book is a story about a boy called Mowgli. Mowgli lives in the jungle. He has no mother or father. His family are the animals in the jungle. Mowgli learns the rules of life in the jungle from and old bear called Baloo, and Bagheera, a black panther. Slowly Mowgli learns the language and the habits of the animals in the jungle. Mowgli’s life is very happy but he is always frightened that Shere Khan, the tiger will jump on him at eat him.

There are two films of The Jungle Book. There was an old black and white film in 1942 with a young Indian actor called Sabu acting the part of Mowgli. Then in 1967 Walt Disney made an animated cartoon film of The Jungle Book with wonderful songs. People loved this film so Walt Disney made another film of the stories of Mowgli called Jungle Book 2.

Rudyard Kipling wrote many more stories for children such as How the leopard got his spots and How the camel got his hump. He called these Just So Stories and they are popular with children all over the world.

Rudyard Kipling also wrote books for adults. A lot of his books are adventure stories. He also wrote exciting ghost stories such as, The Room in the Tower and Other Stories.

Rudyard Kipling also helped Baden Powell, the man who started the Boy Scouts. Baden Powell wanted to start an organisation for younger boys like the Boy Scouts. Baden Powell liked the story called Mowgli’s Brothers from The Jungle Book. When Mowgli was a young boy he lived in the jungle with a pack of wolves. Mowgli’s brothers were wolf cubs. Baden Powell started an organisation called the wolf cubs. Each group is called a ‘pack’ and they meet in a ‘den’. The leader of each pack is called ‘Akela’, like the leader of the pack in Kipling’s story. The leader’s assistants are called Baloo (like the bear in The Jungle Book) and Bagheera (like the panther in The Jungle Book).

Rudyard Kipling died in 1923 when he was 71 years old. His body was buried in ‘Poets Corner’ – a special place in Westminster Abbey in London.

When people in England tried to choose their favourite poem, they selected a short poem called If by Rudyard Kipling. In the poem, a father is explaining to his son, what he must do to be a man.

IF
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

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