The Wolf Cub's Handbook
Post-1929 edition cover
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| Author | Robert Baden-Powell |
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| Illustrator | Robert Baden-Powell |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Children's literature |
| Publisher | C Arthur Pearson Limited, London |
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Publication date
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1916 |
The Wolf Cub's Handbook is an instructional handbook on Wolf Cubs training, published in various editions since December 1916. Early editions were written and illustrated by Robert Baden-Powell with later editions being extensively rewritten by others. The book has a theme based on Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book jungle setting and characters.
In 1914, The Boy Scouts Association of the United Kingdom had Percy Everett prepare a program for boys who were too young to be Boy Scouts (at about 11 years old). An outline of his "Junior Scouts" program was published in the Headquarters Gazette in 1914. However, Baden-Powell wanted something quite different from a watered down Boy Scout program and recognized that too close an association between the junior program and the Boy Scouts would detract from both. Baden-Powell wanted a junior scheme with distinct name, uniform and other identity and program. In 1916, Baden-Powell published his own outlines for such a scheme, it was to be called Wolf Cubs. Baden-Powell retained elements of Everett's plan but gave it a theme by basing it on Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book, which had been published a decade earlier and was an established favourite with children. The Wolf Cubs scheme was given a publicity launch at The Boy Scouts Association's Imperial Headquarters in Buckingham Palace Road, Westminster, on Saturday 24 June 1916. Baden-Powell wrote a book for the scheme, The Wolf Cub's Handbook, which was published in December 1916.
The book included a of the Mowgli stories from the Jungle Book, and ceremonies and games based on them. Woven into this were instructional passages on health, fitness, camping, observation, knotting, semaphore, first aid, knitting and "being useful at home". The chapters are called "bites" because "this book is a meal offered by an old Wolf to the young Cubs".
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