Reviews

Gr 7-12 Parker's watercolors provide another dimension to this most famous of Kipling's Barrack-Room Ballads, first published in 1890. Its last line, ``You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din,'' is perhaps one of the most oft-quoted in the English language, yet how many have actually digested the whole of this tale of prejudice, brutality, and class consciousness during the Indian Mutiny of 1857? Gunga Din is the despised and much-abused water carrier for a British regiment who bears his lot with quiet dignity until, while saving the life of the narrator, he loses his own. A foreword by Kingsley Amis sets the historical context for the poem, and a map of India is included. Parker's impressionistic watercolors depict the events in a dream-like sequence while he gives more clarity to the beginning and ending pictures of soldiers at a table hearing of the story. Kipling's greatest strengththe colorful rendering of the soldier's dialectmay prove difficult to interpret for today's American students, and one wonders how they will react to such lines as: ``Of all them blackfaced crew/ The finest man I knew/ Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din,'' or ``An' for all `is dirty 'ide/ `E was white, clear white, inside/ When `e went to tend the wounded under fire!'' While the message of the poem is anti-prejudice, there is an essential condescension toward another race that is perhaps best left to students of English literature to discuss in Kipling seminars. Connie C. Rockman, The Ferguson Lib . , Stamford, Conn.

Parker's paintings elegantly interpret the British Cockney soldier's eulogy to Gunga Din. The selection from Kipling's Barrack-Room Ballads is illustrated with views of India in the late 19th centuryvivid pictures of disciplined troops with banners held high, in stunning contrast with scenes of fierce battles. Through all the chaos and terror, Gunga Din is there: carrying water to the beleaguered soldiers whom he serves faithfully while they insult and abuse him, until he dies. Younger readers may need help with the dialogue, but they'll catch the spirit expressed in rhyme and pictures. An introduction by Kingsley Amis not seen by PW. Ages 6-up. (October)