Just So Stories
Thirteen classic children’s stories from the Nobel Prize–winning author of The Jungle Book.
 
Inspired by the bedtime stories Rudyard Kipling told his own daughter, Josephine, the charming tales in Just So Stories, including “How the Leopard Got His Spots” and “How the Camel Got His Hump,” attempt to answer the many questions children have about animals.
 
“Children love these stories as well because of their extraordinary ingenuity and inventiveness. Kipling has an Aesopian understanding of animals, of our dealings with them and our curious interrelatedness, interdependence, how we can learn about our own strange behaviour, our vanities and our foolishness, through them and through our relationship with them.” —Michael Morpurgo, The Guardian
 
“It does for very little children much what the Jungle Books did for older ones. It is artfully artless, in its themes, in its repetitions, in its habitual limitation, and occasional abeyance, of adult humor. It strikes a child as the kind of yarn his father or uncle might have spun if he had just happened to think of it; and it has, like all good fairy-business, a sound core of philosophy.” —The Atlantic
1100088528
Just So Stories
Thirteen classic children’s stories from the Nobel Prize–winning author of The Jungle Book.
 
Inspired by the bedtime stories Rudyard Kipling told his own daughter, Josephine, the charming tales in Just So Stories, including “How the Leopard Got His Spots” and “How the Camel Got His Hump,” attempt to answer the many questions children have about animals.
 
“Children love these stories as well because of their extraordinary ingenuity and inventiveness. Kipling has an Aesopian understanding of animals, of our dealings with them and our curious interrelatedness, interdependence, how we can learn about our own strange behaviour, our vanities and our foolishness, through them and through our relationship with them.” —Michael Morpurgo, The Guardian
 
“It does for very little children much what the Jungle Books did for older ones. It is artfully artless, in its themes, in its repetitions, in its habitual limitation, and occasional abeyance, of adult humor. It strikes a child as the kind of yarn his father or uncle might have spun if he had just happened to think of it; and it has, like all good fairy-business, a sound core of philosophy.” —The Atlantic
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Just So Stories

Just So Stories

by Rudyard Kipling
Just So Stories

Just So Stories

by Rudyard Kipling

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Overview

Thirteen classic children’s stories from the Nobel Prize–winning author of The Jungle Book.
 
Inspired by the bedtime stories Rudyard Kipling told his own daughter, Josephine, the charming tales in Just So Stories, including “How the Leopard Got His Spots” and “How the Camel Got His Hump,” attempt to answer the many questions children have about animals.
 
“Children love these stories as well because of their extraordinary ingenuity and inventiveness. Kipling has an Aesopian understanding of animals, of our dealings with them and our curious interrelatedness, interdependence, how we can learn about our own strange behaviour, our vanities and our foolishness, through them and through our relationship with them.” —Michael Morpurgo, The Guardian
 
“It does for very little children much what the Jungle Books did for older ones. It is artfully artless, in its themes, in its repetitions, in its habitual limitation, and occasional abeyance, of adult humor. It strikes a child as the kind of yarn his father or uncle might have spun if he had just happened to think of it; and it has, like all good fairy-business, a sound core of philosophy.” —The Atlantic

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781504062695
Publisher: Open Road Media
Publication date: 04/21/2020
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 124
File size: 22 MB
Note: This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range: 5 - 8 Years

About the Author

Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) was born in Bombay and educated in England. He returned to India to begin a career in journalism and would go on to become one of the most popular and acclaimed writers of his day. Among his best-loved works is The Jungle Book, a collection of stories about a boy raised by wolves in the Indian jungle, which was adapted into the classic Disney film of the same name. In 1907, Kipling became the first English-language writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) was born in Bombay and educated in England. He returned to India to begin a career in journalism and would go on to become one of the most popular and acclaimed writers of his day. Among his best-loved works is The Jungle Book, a collection of stories about a boy raised by wolves in the Indian jungle, which was adapted into the classic Disney film of the same name. In 1907, Kipling became the first English-language writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. 

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

How The Whale
Got His Throat

In the sea, once upon a time, O my Best Beloved, there was a Whale,, and he ate fishes. He ate the starfish and the garfish, and the crab and the dab, and the plaice and the dace, and the skate and his mate, and the mackereel and the pickereel, and the really truly twirly-whirly eel. All the fishes he could find in all the sea he ate with his mouth — so! Till at last there was only one small fish left in all the sea, and he was a small 'Stute Fish, and he swam a little behind the Whale's right ear, so as to be out of harm's way. Then the Whale stood up on his tail and said, I'm hungry." And the small 'Stute Fish said in a small 'stute voice, "Noble and generous Cetacean, have you ever tasted Man?"

'No, said the Whale. "What is it like?"

"Nice," said the small 'Stute Fish. "Nice but nubbly."

"Then fetch me some, said the Whale, and he made the sea froth up with his tail.

"One at a time is enough,"' said the 'Stute Fish. "If you swim to latitude Fifty North, longitude Forty West (that is Magic), you will find, sitting on a raft, in the middle of the sea, with nothing on but a pair of blue canvas breeches, a pair of suspenders (you must not forget the suspenders, Best Beloved), and a jackknife, one shipwrecked Mariner, who, it is only fair to tell you, is a man of infinite-resource-and-sagacity."

So the Whale swam and swam to latitude Fifty North, longitude Forty West, as fast as he could swim, and on a raft, in the middle of the sea, with nothing to wear except a pair of blue canvas breeches, a pair of suspenders (you mustparticularly remember the suspenders Best Beloved), and a jackknife, he found one single, solitary shipwrecked Mariner, trailing his toes in the water. (He had his Mummy's leave to paddle, or else he would never have done it) because he was a man of infinite -resource- and-sagacity.)

Then the Whale opened his mouth back and back and back till it nearly touched his tail, and he swallowed the shipwrecked Mariner, and the raft he was sitting on, and his blue canvas breeches, and the suspenders (which you must not forget), and the jackknife —He swallowed them all down into his warm, dark, inside cupboards, and then he smacked his lips — so, and turned round three times on his tail.

But as soon as the Mariner, who was a man of infinite -resource- and- sagacity, found himself truly inside the Whale's warm, dark, inside cupboards, he stumpedand he jumped and he thumped and he bumped, and he pranced and he danced, and he banged and he clanged, and he hit and he bit, and he leaped and he creeped, and he prowled and he howled, and he hopped and he dropped, and he cried and he sighed, and he crawled and he bawled) and he stepped and he lepped, and he danced hornpipes where he shouldn't, and the Whale felt most unhappy indeed. (Have you forgotten the suspenders?)

So he said to the 'Stute Fish, This man is very nubbly, and besides he is making me hiccough. What shall I do? "

"Tell him to come out," said the 'Stute Fish.

So the Whale called down his own throat to the shipwrecked Mariner, "Come out and behave yourself. I've got the hiccoughs."

"Nay, nay!" said the Mariner. "Not so, but far otherwise. Take me to my natal-shore and the white-cliffs-of-Albion, and I'll think about it." And he began to dance more than ever.

"You had better take him home," said the 'Stute Fish to the Whale. "I ought to have warned you that he is a man of infinite-resource-and-sagacity."

So the Whale swam and swam and swam, with both flippers and his tail, as hard as he could for the hiccoughs; and at last he saw the Mariner's natal-shore and the white - cliffs - of-Albion, and he rushed halfway up the beach, and opened his mouth wide and wide and wide, and said, "Change here for Winchester, Ashuelot, Nashua,) Keene.) and stations on the Fitchburg Road"; and just as he said "Fitch" the Mariner walked out of his mouth. But while the Whale had been swimming, the Mariner, who was indeed a person of infinite-resource- and- sagacity, had taken his jackknife and cut up the raft into a little square grating all running crisscross, and he had tied it firm with his suspenders (now you know why you were not to forget the suspenders!), and he dragged that grating good and tight into the Whale's throat, and there it stuck! Then he recited the following Sloka, which, as you have not heard it, I will now proceed to relate —

By means of a grating I have stopped your ating.

For the Mariner he was also an Hi-ber-ni-an. And he stepped out on the shingle, and went home to his Mother, who had given him leave to trail his toes in the water; and he married and lived happily ever afterward. So did the Whale. But from that day on, the grating in his throat, which he could neither cough up nor swallow down, prevented him eating anything except very, very small fish; and that is the reason why whales nowadays never eat men or boys or little girls.

The small 'Stute Fish went and hid himself in the mud under the Doorsills of the Equator. He was afraid that the Whale might be angry with him.

The Sailor took the jackknife home. He was wearing the blue canvas breeches when he walked out on the shingle. The suspenders were left behind, you see, to tie the grating with; and that is the end of that tale.

Table of Contents

How the Whale Got His Throat 1

How the Camel Got His Hump 15

How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin 29

How the Leopard Got His Spots 43

The Elephant's Child 63

The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo 85

The Beginning of the Armadillos 101

How the First Letter was Written 123

How the Alphabet was Made 145

The Crab that Played with the Sea 171

The Cat that Walked by Himself 197

The Butterfly that Stamped 225

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