Kim

I will be the first to admit that I have horribly neglected this blog. There have been a lot of things going on outside of my reading activity, and to be honest, looking back, I'm not even sure where the last 8 months went. 

I can only think of 3 books I read during that time. 

One of them is Kim. I picked Kim because I like the name, and due to stress and other things, I was going for some long hanging fruit. And a book written in the 1950's for an audience of 15 year old boys was just the ticket. 

Kim is a little Indian orphan boy who does what most little Indian orphan boys do - beg for food, scamper around, and carry messages of war for horse traders. In his city, Kim meets up with a priest, who requires some help, because the priest does not have the street savvy that Kim does. So, Kim embarks on a long journey with the priest to find the River of Life, which takes him across the plains, up the mountains, and allows him to meet a whole colorful cast of characters. 

There is a little twist in the plot though, as Kim's dad was a white man and his mother was Indian. On their journey, Kim is found by an English regiment and placed into a boy's school for the children of white men. 

This book was nice, and uncomplicated. There was a lot of really great scenery and character development, and of course you have the inherent conflict between "Kim the Sahib" and "Kim the Scamp" as he struggles to find his identity in colonial India. The story is about how people from unlikely backgrounds interact with each other as well - the Bengali, Tibetan Monk, and Arab horse trader all serve as defacto guardians for Kim, ensuring that he has an adventure, but not enough adventure to get himself killed.