From Pooh and Piglet, Charlotte and Wilbur to Sophie and the BFG, children’s books are full of unlikely but wonderful friendships. John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, whose new book, The Boy at the Top of the Mountain, features an unexpected friendship between Hitler and a French orhpan boy, selects his favourite fictional friendships
Unlikely friendships between humans and animals are staples of both children’s literature and cinema. Kipling’s tale of a child, Mowgli, growing up in the jungle alongside Baloo the Bear and Bagheera the Panther while taking care to avoid the attentions of the tiger Shere Khan – because he might, you know, eat him – presents this as an entirely natural state of affairs. The stories are fables, the animals offering moral lessons, particularly in the three stories featuring the “man-cub” himself. Adapted so often and into so many different shapes, it’s best to go back to the source, to the jungle, and read it as Kipling intended.
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