Kim - by Rudyard Kipling

Kim is the orphaned son of British colonial parents. His dad was a soldier. Kim was known as "friend to all the world" by the natives. A street urchin, Kim is wise beyond his years, and speaks the native tongue like the subtle and rascally native he really is. Indeed, his ancestry is something of a mystery cloaked in the semi-mystical ramblings of a oman who more or less cared for him. Pay close attention the Buddhist priest to whom Kim attaches himself, but not how this attachment serves as a vehicle for an interesting survey of the times and places through which the priest's pilgrimage takes them. The meeting of East and West is wonderful, though some pan it for being Anglo-centric.