RIKKI-TIKKI-TAVI
by Rudyard Kipling & illustrated by Lambert Davis
One of the most beautifully crafted, suspenseful, and appealing of all children's stories, this selection from The Jungle Book is handsomely set in a large volume illustrated in a smooth, generalized style. Using warm browns and glowing blues and greens in carefully constructed designs lying close to the picture plane, Davis chooses just a few authentic details of the 19th-century raj to spark young imaginations without overwhelming them with minutiae. His people are wooden, while the story's lively action is judiciously understated; but the young mongoose's encounters with his cobra antagonists are represented with just enough three-dimensional action to command attention. A fine introduction to a masterpiece. (Fiction/Picture book. 4+)