3 h 24 minAudiobook9 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 3 h 24 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · 83 pagesHardcover · 6 × 9 in · 83 pagesAbout this book
What if an elephant’s trunk begins with a question, and a camel’s hump begins with refusing to work?
In Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories, the world is still new and animals are not quite finished. The Elephant’s Child has a short, bulgy nose and endless questions. The Camel refuses to help. A rude rhinoceros steals the Parsee’s cake. Curiosity, laziness, and bad manners set these playful tales in motion.
The storyteller speaks to Best Beloved, keeping a small listener close through chants, jokes, and words that bounce. How the Whale Got His Throat and How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin offer fanciful answers to familiar questions. The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo and The Cat that Walked by Himself bring fresh creatures, wishes, and bargains into this collection.
What you’ll discover
- Questions that lead somewhere Follow the Elephant’s Child toward the Limpopo River, driven by his endless need to know.
- A cat’s own terms Meet a wild cat who wants shelter without becoming anyone’s servant.
- Mischief with a consequence Watch greed, laziness, and rude manners stir up trouble among memorable animals.
- Words worth saying aloud Enjoy strange names, playful repetition, and chants that keep the storyteller’s voice close.
- The first drawn messages Discover Taffy, a cave girl who draws messages on bark after a spear breaks.
Who will love it
For parents who read aloud, young listeners, and anyone who enjoys words that bounce and rattle, playful animal tales, chants and jokes.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A storyteller speaks to Best Beloved
- Greed and laziness get what they earn
- Rhino, Leopard, and the lessons of vanity
- Curiosity sends the Elephant's Child to the river
- Strange animals and the first people
- The Cat who walked by himself, and how it is told
Who’s who
- Best BelovedThe small listener the teller addresses, who hears each tale and, like a child at bedtime, expects it told exactly just so.
- The Elephant's ChildA young elephant with a short, bulgy nose and endless questions, who sets out for the Limpopo River to find an answer.
- The CamelA lazy desert animal who answers every request to work with one rude word, until a Djinn grows tired of it.
- The ParseeA cake-baking man on an island near the Red Sea, who has a score to settle with a rude rhinoceros.
- Taffimai MetallumaiTaffy, a cave girl and daughter of Tegumai Bopsulai, who invents drawing messages on bark after a spear breaks.
- The CatA wild cat who will not be anyone's servant and wants to enter the cave on his own terms.
- The WomanThe first Woman, clever and quick, who makes bargains at the cave with every animal that comes to her.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
- On your phone, tablet, computer or Kindle, with the type as large as you like.
- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 3 h 24 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 9 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in, 83 pages: 6,95 USD when you start free, 12,95 USD on its own.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in, 83 pages: 13,95 USD when you start free, 19,95 USD on its own.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Just So Stories
by Rudyard Kipling · 1902
The Elephant's Child sets out for the Limpopo River to find an answer to his endless questions.
Medium level2–5 hours to read25 languages
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In short
Just So Stories is a book of tales for children by Rudyard Kipling, published in 1902. Each one tells how some animal or thing came to be as it is.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A storyteller speaks to Best Beloved
Kipling spent part of his childhood in India and later lived in England, and he knew how a story sounds when it is told at the end of a day. Just So Stories keeps that sound. The teller leans in and calls the listener Best Beloved, then says what happened in the High and Far-Off Times. The sentences repeat, the names are long, and a joke is often set up long before it arrives.
The tales were first told to his own children, and the book is closely tied to his daughter Josephine, who died young in 1899. Many readers feel that warmth in the text. Each tale had to work when read at bedtime, in the same words each time, because children notice any change. This is why the wording feels so fixed and so musical.
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What is Just So Stories about?
It is a book of twelve tales for children, each explaining how an animal or thing got its shape or habits, such as the camel's hump or the elephant's trunk, told in a playful, musical voice.
Who is Best Beloved in Just So Stories?
Best Beloved is the child the teller speaks to throughout the book. It reflects the way the tales were first told, at bedtime, to Kipling's own children.
What does just so mean in the title?
Just so means exactly so. In the book, a child expects each tale to be told in the same words every time, and the teller promises that these are the true reasons.
The author
Rudyard Kipling
1865–1936 · English novelist and poet
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) was an English writer and poet born in Bombay, India. He lived in India, England and the United States. He wrote The Jungle Book (1894), The Second Jungle Book (1895), Kim (1901) and Just So Stories (1902). He died in London in 1936.
More by Rudyard Kipling
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