A Compare and Contrast in Children stories of Rudyard Kipling and Ruskin Bond

Abstract

Animal stories always have been a center of attraction in children literature. These
stories not only open the doors of excitement for children but also present the supreme examples
for brotherhood fraternity and compassion for others. It’s not a new genre of literature yet still
grasps the attention for readers as well as writers. Even centuries ago, when no record found of
any literature, some fables and moral lesson were found in civilizations to be sung or acted
before the audience on festivals and on other happy occasions. There are many writers who got
fame by writing animal stories and became popular among children throughout the world.
Rudyard Kipling is one the famous writers for children literature; who earned a vivid place by
writing Jungle Book. Jungle Book is ever green gems among all of his stories written for
children. The character, Mogli, has always been in the mind of readers because of his unordinary
situations to survive in a forest among animals. His picaresqueness of dealing with Mogli’s
adventure with animals in forest, presents amazing world of animals. Another selected writer for
this research, Ruskin Bond, also has the same friendliness and affection in the mind of readers
for his children stories. Mr. Bond shares an unusual experience with animals in his writing. Bond
has always been a lover of nature and sometimes seems to have an extraordinary gift by god to
understand the language of silent wide spread nature. Bond’s stories present an extra ordinary
world where soft and mild animals breathe in the lap of warmth and loving earth bursting with
all qualities of motherhood which nourishes them and gives them space to live. In his stories
readers may encounter stories of a very simple and regular incident which happens with almost
all of human beings as all existing human are surrounded with a lot of living insects, birds, and
animals; but, most of the time these incidents and these living beings are ignored by humans but
Bond make them interesting and fascinating and fills the heart of his readers with love and
sympathy towards them. Bond’s stories present the warm and caring side of animals as a partner
which is sometimes better than the company of human beings.
This paper presents a compare and contrast between the animal stories written by these two soft
hearted, brilliant and most loving authors among kids. Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling and
Animal stories by Ruskin Bind will be taken as the center of the research. In the end of the paper
a critical analysis of the moral lessons presents by both of the writers will be discussed which not
only would be helpful for the upcoming writers to write on the same theme but also would
enhance the importance of children literature.