Kim isn't the Rudyard Kipling most people recall from their schooldays: the imperialist behind The White Man's Burden. Not having read anything other than The Jungle Book as a child (and of course seeing the Disney movie version many times, not to mention regularly watching the film version of another of Kipling's classics--one of my favorites--John Huston's The Man Who Would Be King with Sean Connery and Michael Caine), I was pleasantly surprised by his embrace of the many cultures and religions of the subcontinent. Clearly, Kim is the work of someone who loves India and her people. In particular, the respectful and clear way he explains Buddhism through one of the main characters is extraordinary for a book published primarily for young Western readers in 1901. It could almost be used in any Intro 101 class on campus today. However, I had two problems with this classic. One is Kipling's reliance on using "thees" and "thous" and other tricks to distinguish Hindi and Urdu vernacular from English; I found it very hard to follow who was speaking to whom at times. The other is the Great Game: for a novel that's supposedly one of the best about the "Cold War" between Great Britain and Russia in the 19th Century, there's very little of the Game in Kim. It's too bad there wasn't a sequel. It looks like we have to rely on modern authors like Mary Russell to imagine Kimball O'Hara as a grown man and spy for His Majesty's Government.