The Jungle Book

Seven stories, each followed by a song. In the first three, the man-cub Mowgli is adopted by wolves, taught the Law of the Jungle by Baloo the bear and Bagheera the panther, carried off by the Monkey People and rescued with the help of Kaa the python, and at last settles his feud with the tiger Shere Khan. The others leave the jungle: a white seal searches the oceans for a safe beach, the mongoose Rikki-Tikki-Tavi fights two cobras in an Indian garden, a boy sees the elephants dance, and the army's animals argue in camp the night before a review.

Rudyard Kipling, born in Bombay, wrote the stories while living in Vermont and published them in 1894. Meredith Hughes reads the whole book alone, songs included, in about five hours.