« prev	next »
Edition:	Random House UK (Paperback)
Author:	Rudyard Kipling
Published:	January 2009
Pages:	224
ISBN 10:	0099511827
New:	$4.99 (23)
Used:	$1.71 (9)
+ add to my profile

The Just So Stories for Little Children were written by British author Rudyard Kipling. They are highly fantasized origin stories and are among Kipling's best known works.

Description

The stories, first published in 1902, are pourquoi stories, fantastic accounts of how various phenomena came about. A forerunner of these stories is "How Fear Came" in The Second Jungle Book (1895), in which Mowgli hears the story of how the tiger got his stripes.

The original editions of Just So Stories were illustrated.

The full list of Just-So Stories

• How the Whale got his Throat- Explains how the whale was once a fearsome predator who ate humans, but was changed by one of his victims.
• How the Camel got his Hump- Explains how the idle camel was punished.
• How the Rhinoceros got his Skin- Explains why Rhinos have folds in their skin and bad tempers.
• How the Leopard got his Spots
• The Elephant's Child- The story of how the elephant's trunk became long.
• The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo- The story of how the kangaroo turned from a grey, wooly animal with short, stubby legs, to the athletic animal we know today.
• The Beginning of the Armadilloes- The story of how the hedgehog and the turtle transformed into the first armadillos.
• How the First Letter was Written- Introduces the only characters who appear in more than one story- a family of cave-people, called Tegumai Bopsulai (the father), Teshumai Tewindrow (the mother), and Taffimai Metallumai, (the daughter). Explains how Taffy delivered a picture message to her mother.
• How the Alphabet was Made- Taffy and her father invent the earliest form of the alphabet.
• The Crab that Played with the Sea
• The Cat that Walked by Himself- The longest story. The story of how all domesticated animals became that way, especially focusing on the wildest of all, the cat. We also learn how the dog, the cow and the horse became man's servants.
• The Butterfly that Stamped- The story of how wise king Solomon rid himself of troublesome wives, and saved the pride of a butterfly.
• The Tabu Tale (missing from most British editions; first appeared in the Scribner edition in the US in 1903)

As well as appearing in a collection, the individual stories have also been published separately, often in large-format illustrated editions for younger children. A video edition has also been released; on VHS tapes it required three tapes with four episodes on each.

References

Wikipedia