When I was about 11 years old, I discovered Rudyard Kipling. Actually I discovered The Jungle Book and all the wonderful stories about very strange places and creatures. I immediately grabbed The Second Jungle Book and loved that almost as much as the first book. Later, I read Kipling’s novels, Kim and Captains Courageous.
Somehow I missed Kipling’s Just So Stories (1902). Maybe I saw an edition with the full title: Just So Stories for Little Children and thought I was too grown up for that since I was on the cusp of becoming a teenager.
But now, at 72, I finally read Just So Stories and came under the spell of Kipling’s magic again. So did Jonathan Stroud but he has me beat by decades. Stroud’s father loved Just So Stories and read them to his small son. Stroud remembers his father making him laugh with these stories that blend silliness and cleverness.
Rudyard Kipling was a born story-teller and these Just So Stories appeal to children of all ages. If you’re looking for some delightful stories to read, here they are. Are you fan of Kipling? GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction by Jonathan Stroud — v
- How the Whale Got His Throat – why the larger whales eat only small prey. — 1
- How the Camel Got His Hump – how the idle camel was punished and given a hump. — 13
- How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin – why rhinos have folds in their skin and bad tempers. — 25
- How the Leopard Got His Spots – why leopards have spots. — 37
- The Elephant’s Child/How the Elephant Got His Trunk – how the elephant‘s trunk became long. — 53
- The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo – how the kangaroo assumed long legs and tail. — 71
- The Beginning of the Armadillos – how a hedgehog and tortoise transformed into the first armadillos. — 83
- 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, shortened to Taffy, (the daughter), and explains how Taffy delivered a picture message to her mother. — 99
- How the Alphabet Was Made – tells how Taffy and her father invent an alphabet. — 119
- The Crab that Played with the Sea – explains the ebb and flow of the tides, as well as how the crab changed from a huge animal into a small one. — 141
- The Cat that Walked by Himself – explains how man domesticated all the wild animals, even the cat, which insisted on greater independence. — 161
- The Butterfly that Stamped – how Solomon saved the pride of a butterfly, and the Queen of Sheba used this to prevent his wives scolding him. — 183
- The Tabu Tale (missing from most British editions; first appeared in the Scribner edition in the U.S. in 1903). and missing from this volume.
BONUS MATERIAL: Author File, Who’s Who in the Just So Stories, Some Things to Do…, Did You Know…?, and Glossary.
Sounds like something my grandkids would like! I’ll keep an eye out for it! Thanks for the tip!
Bob, not only will your grandkids like JUST SO STORIES, you’ll like it, too!
I looked for it today at B&N! Out of stock! But the info on it said for ages 8-12 and most of my grandkids are under 5!
Bob, you can prepare for the Future when your grandkids are 8-12!
Q: Do you like Kipling? A: I don’t know. I’ve never kippled.
Jerry, you have a lot to look forward to with Kipling!
George, also to look back to…various GUINNESS BOOK editions, at least early on, cited a greeting card with an ardent young man asking a cheerful young woman “Do you like Kipling?” and her reply “I don’t know, you naughty boy, I’ve never kippled.” as the world’s best-selling…
Todd, clever wordplay!
I’m sure I was exposed to these stories as I grew up during the last gasp of the post-WWII British Empire, but I remember them primarily because John read them to the girls when they were little (“By the great green greasy Limpopo River…” etc.). What I associate Kipling with now are stories like THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING and a certain type of British stiff-upper-lip-ism that’s considered quaint (at best) today.
Deb, today Kipling is vilified for being part of the British colonial empire of that era. He’s a great story-telling and that’s what matters to me as I read these wonderful tales!
He was a complex figure, a part of the colonial body of Britishism, but not at all certain it was particularly noble.
Todd, at that time, the British Empire promoted patriotism (and perhaps some White Supremacy). Kipling was smart enough to realize the flaws in that system.
!57% White Supremacy, the White Man’s Burden, etc.
Mack Reynolds even less conflicted when he wrote BLACK MAN’S BURDEN back when.
Todd, you’re right about Mack Reynolds and his stance in BLACK MAN’S BURDEN. That wouldn’t fly today!
You just turned a discussion of an author into a PC discussion. Shame. I suppose I’m a bad guy (again?) for liking Kipling and much of his work, from RIKKI-TIKKI-TAVI to THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING to KIM, GUNGA DIN and his poetry. It’s all lovely stuff.
Why, yes, Rick, that’s exactly what both George and I said, while reveling in our evil in also being fans of Kipling’s best work.
While not necessarily being fans of Kipling’s or for that matter Reynolds’s incomplete (very incomplete in Kipling’s case) working out their doubts about the absolute morality and correctness of the values they’d been raised with.
To be honest, I don’t remember reading Kipling at all as a kid, and had a somewhat negative view of him over the years. A couple of years ago (or so) I bought a Kindle collection of his stuff and read a couple of his early Indian collections but I really should get back to this and the others.
Jeff, Kipling’s imagination tickles my Sense of Wonder each time I read his stories.
I was a stubbornly dull child that only read stories exactly about children like me. How much I missed as the children’s librarian at my local library, Mrs. Robinson told me, shaking her head.
Patti, children develop at different rates. And, interests change over time. As Paul Simon would say: Coo, coo, ca-choo, Mrs. Robinson,
Jesus loves you more than you will know
Whoa, whoa, whoa
Yes, but she’s in an asylum in the version of the script Simon wrote the song from.
Now you’re quoting Snowy?
All throughout your youth, Patti? Impressive. I’m not sure how much literature I could find about children like myself, or certainly how I saw myself, at the time.
I’m sure I read a few of these here and there in anthologies, but never in any systematic way. The only thing I specifically remember by Kipling is the poem IF.
Michael, if you haven’t seen John Huston’s THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING–based on one of Kipling’s most haunting stories–I highly recommend it.
I certainly read the JUST SO STORIES with alacrity, in fact my copy was a Lancer Books Magnum Easy-Eye paperback, aimed at least as much at older adult readers as kids…since I was able to pick it up off the post-Lancer bankruptcy Grant’s five-and-dime quarter paperback tables, along with the other classics and some Lancer paperbacks of the period.
I’d read THE JUNGLE BOOK with similar alacrity at age 8, and was slightly disappointed with THE SECOND JUNGLE BOOK in comparison when finding it the next year…KIM, CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS and various short stories and poems of his were in my remit (“Gunga Din” alone gives us a sense of just how double-bottomed his opinion of the Empire and the subjugated people in it was), but JUNGLE the first and JUST SO were particular favorites.
Todd, like you, I was was a bit disappointed in THE SECOND JUNGLE BOOK but that didn’t stop me from reading more Kipling.
https://socialistjazz.blogspot.com/2018/08/ffr-zoo-story-by-edward-albee-performed.html includes Sterling Holloway’s recording of “How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin” for Disneyland Records back in the day…
It’s always nice to hear from another Kipling fan. I’ve loved Kipling since the eighth grade and reread him every year. A lot of people who have never read him or given his work but a cursory read write him off as an imperialist but Kipling was a much more complex man than that with a far more complex, nuanced character. In fact, he did a lot to humanize non-whites and their cultures to British eyes and played a big part in nudging the West into a more enlightened perspective on other peoples. He was also a very severe critic of British society which was why he always felt more at home in India, the United States or almost anywhere else abroad.
More importantly, Kipling was and remains one of our greatest storytellers and his best work (of which there is A LOT) holds up beautifully, especially his ghost stories.
George, you might find Christopher Benfey’s “If: The Untold Story of Kipling’s American Years” a good read. It does a lot to demonstrate how living in America for ten years, where he wrote most of his most important work, influenced both his work and his world view.
Byron, somehow I thought you might be a Kipling fan, too! I’ll check out Christopher Benfey’s “If: The Untold Story of Kipling’s American Years” and let you know what I think. I feel sorry for people who consider Kipling a Capitalist-Imperialist Tool and ignore his wonderful stories and novels.
I have not read much Kipling but these do sound interesting. I tried some online but I think I need the comfort of a paper copy, maybe with illustrations, to enjoy these. I will look around. Our independent bookstore probably has some nice copies when I can get there.
Tracy, I think you’ll enjoy Kipling’s JUST SO STORIES and perhaps you’ll try his other wonderful works.