Welcome back to Book Break!
Today we have come to London Zoo!
And we're celebrating the new release of a new edition of a childhood favourite, The
Jungle Book.
So today, I wanted to come to the zoo and spend a bit of time with some of the animals
in this book, including several characters I bet you've never heard of before.
And I'm here all thanks to ZSL, the Zoological Society of London, an internation conservaton
charity, working to create a world that takes better care of our wonderful wildlife.
They've been investigating the health threats facing animals worldwide, as well as coming
up with solutions to help humans and animals live more peacefully alongside each other.
And they're totally committed to bringing animals back from the brink of extinction.
I'll put their link in the description so you can visit their amazing zoos and read
all about their wonderful work.
So fans of the Disney movies will already remember Mowgli, and Shere Khan the tiger,
and Kaa the snake.
Shere Khan is definitely one of the scariest characters in The Jungle Book, but these animals
are just completely magnificent.
And in the wild, Sumatran tigers are estimated to be as low as 300 individuals left.
So ZSL have been working in Sumatra for the last 16 years to help protect these amazing
animals.
So now I'm going to go into the reptile house, to have a look at some pythons just like Kaa,
and even a king cobra.
London Zoo was actually the first zoo to ever build a reptile house.
They built it in 1849, and this one I'm about to go into was built in 1926, and it houses
everything from snakes to lizards to even frogs and crocodiles.
But did you know there are so many more characters in the original book that never made it to
the movie?
Mowgli isn't even the main character in The Jungle Book.
He's actually only in three of the original seven stories.
So today I'm going to tell you a few of my favourite stories that never made it to the
movie.
Now Kotick the Seal's story is a bit unexpected, because he doesn't live in the jungle, obviously,
because he's a seal.
So Kotick is the only white-furred seal on his whole island.
So all of the humans are terrified of him and think that he's a ghost.
But when he sees some of his friends being captured and killed by the humans for their
fur, he's absolutely terrified, and set off on a years-long mission to find a new island
that is safe where the humans will never come.
And today, seals can actually be seen in central London locations like Canary Wharf along the
Thames, and ZSL runs a Thames and Marine Mammal conservation programme.
One of my favourite stories in The Jungle Book is Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.
And Rikki-Tikki-Tavi is a mongoose, who lives with a family and sleeps in the bed with the
young boy Teddy.
But the garden that the family live in is full of terrifying snakes, including two black
cobras.
And the cobras form a rivalry with Rikki-Tikki-Tavi so they come up with a plan.
If they kill the humans that look after Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, he will have to leave and the garden will
be theirs again.
But luckily, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi overhears this plan, and so he and his other friends that
live in the garden come up with a plan to defeat the snakes.
And here I've got some mongeese behind me here, and they are so cute!
Weirdly, there are no lions in The Jungle Book, so you might think of them as just as
African animal.
But actually, ZSL has been home to Asiatic lions for many years, and they're here as
part of a European breeding programme to increase their numbers in the wild.
And finally, I'm going to tell you about Toomai of the Elephants.
Now Toomai of the Elephants is a human, he's a little ten-year-old boy who wants to grow
up and follow in his family's footsteps and become master of the elephants.
But the chief tells him that he's far too young, and he has to wait until the day that
he sees the elephants dance.
Well, you can guess what's going to happen here.
Little Toomai actually has an elephant pal, Kala Nag, who has belonged to their family
for generations.
So one night, he follows Kala Nag and finds where the elephants dance.
Today, Asian elephants are classified as endangered, due to human conflict, habitat loss, and poaching.
And so ZSL are doing a lot of work in Thailand to ensure that humans and elephants can co-exist
peacefully, just like Toomai of the Elephants would have wanted.
So if you only ever watched the movies, you did miss out on a lot, but don't worry, you
can catch up with it all in this edition, because it's all included in here, alongside
other poems and short stories that Rudyard Kipling wrote.
It's got gorgeous illustrations throughout it, as well as a glossary at the beginning
that teaches you some of the words and how to pronounce them.
And it's so shiny!
Now The Jungle Book isn't the first time that beloved characters have failed to make it
to the big screen.
Think about Winky and Peeves in Harry Potter, Katniss's best friend Madge in The Hunger
Games... and did you know that in The Wizard of Oz, Glenda wasn't the only good witch?
There was also a good witch named Tattypoo, so I can see why they left her out of the
movie.
So leave me a comment below with your favourite book character that never made it into the
movie, and do give this video a thumbs up if you liked it.
And of course, hit that subscribe button because we post new videos every Thursday.
And next week, we're off to Norwich for a historical tour, to see it through the eyes
of the characters from CJ Sansom's new book Tombland.
See you next time!