Books with title Just So Stories.

Kipling's own drawings, with their long, funny captions, illustrate his hilarious explanations of How the Camel Got His Hump, How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin, How the Armadillo Happened, and other animal How's. He began inventing these stories in his American wife's hometown of Brattleboro, Vermont, to amuse his eldest daughter--and they have served ever since as a source of laughter for children everywhere.

Once upon a time, O my Best Beloved . . . So begins this classic collection of gloriously fanciful tales of how things in the world came to be as they are. This collection includes the story of how the lazy camel found himself with a hump and how the insatiable curiosity of the elephant earned him his long trunk. It reveals how the whale was given a throat, and why every rhinoceros has great folds in his skin and a very bad temper. We also find out about the cunning cat that walked by itself, and how clever little Taffy and her Daddy Tegumai made the first alphabet. Rudyard Kipling first entertained his own children with these delightful, warm, and humorous stories, which he later wrote down for publication in 1902. Conjuring up distant lands and exotic jungles, they are bewitching for both children and adults. This sumptuous volume offers the complete and unabridged text, including the often-missing 13th story, "The Tabu Tal," which Kipling added for the American edition in 1903.

"Just So Stories" is a collection of 12 short stories for children first published in 1902. They are fantastic stories, with that magic/legend/myth atmosphere of fairy tales, explaining things like the origin of armadillos or how the alphabet was invented. All the stories have a great deal of humour too. I remember loving these stories as a kid, and I'm sure big and small people will like them today.This edition is illustrated by the author, including drop caps. The illustrations' "captions" are delightful to read too ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was a British Author, born in India, and worldwide famous for works like "The Jungle Book", "Kim" or the poem "If". He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1907, which made him the first English language writer to win it.

Here is the complete and unabridged collection of Rudyard Kipling's delightful Just So Stories, which he first told to his own children before setting them down on paper: How the Camel Got His Hump, How the Leopard Got His Spots, How the Elephant Got His Trunk, The Butterfly that Stamped, and many others. Written in the late 1800s and first published in 1902, these enchanting animals remain unforgettable, over 100 years later. To hear these magic fables by a master of children's literature is to enjoy them.

The delightful tales of whales and cats and kangaroos and crabs – everything from how the camel got in a humph (and got his hump!) to how the alphabet was invented. Enchanting and funny, these fantastical stories continue to delight each and every generation. With an inspiring written, inspiring introduction by Jonathan Stroud, author of the Bartimaeus trilogy, Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling is one of the twelve wonderful classic stories being relaunched in Puffin Classics in March 2008.

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

The Just So Stories for Little Children are a collection written by the British author Rudyard Kipling. Highly fantasised origin stories, especially for differences among animals, they are among Kipling's best known works.The stories, first published in 1902, are pourquoi (French for "why") or origin stories, fantastic accounts of how various phenomena came about. A forerunner of these stories is Kipling's "How Fear Came," included in his The Second Jungle Book (1895). In it, Mowgli hears the story of how the tiger got his stripes.The Just So Stories typically have the theme of a particular animal being modified from an original form to its current form by the acts of man, or some magical being. For example, the Whale has a tiny throat because he swallowed a mariner, who tied a raft inside to block the whale from swallowing other men. The Camel has a hump given to him by a djinn as punishment for the camel's refusing to work (the hump allows the camel to work longer between times of eating). The Leopard's spots were painted by an Ethiopian (after the Ethiopian painted himself black). The Kangaroo gets its powerful hind legs, long tail, and hopping gait after being chased all day by a dingo, sent by a minor god responding to the Kangaroo's request to be made different from all other animals.Kipling illustrated the original editions of the Just So Stories. Other illustrators of the book include Joseph M. Gleeson.

First published in 1902, “Just So Stories” is Rudyard Kipling’s classic collection of animal fables and poetry. This collection grew out of nighttime story-telling between Rudyard and his daughter Josephine. The peculiar name is drawn from her insistence that these tales, which were origin stories describing how animals got their most distinctive features, be told “just so”. This volume reproduces the complete edition of “Just So Stories” which includes the following stories: “How The Whale Got His Throat”, “How The Camel Got His Hump”, “How The Rhinoceros Got His Skin”, “How The Leopard Got His Spots”, “The Elephant’s Child”, “The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo”, “The Beginning of the Armadillos”, “How The First Letter Was Written”, “How The Alphabet Was Made”, “The Crab That Played With The Sea”, “The Cat That Walked By Himself”, “The Tabu Tale”, and “The Butterfly That Stamped”. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper and includes the original illustrations by the author.

An unforgettable cast of extraordinary animal characters is brought to life in stunning new illustrations by award-winning illustrator Robert Ingpen Once upon a time, O my Best Beloved . . . So begins this classic collection of gloriously fanciful tales of how things in the world came to be as they are. This collection includes the story of how the lazy camel found himself with a hump and how the insatiable curiosity of the elephant earned him his long trunk. It reveals how the whale was given a throat, and why every rhinoceros has great folds in his skin and a very bad temper. We also find out about the cunning cat that walked by itself, and how clever little Taffy and her Daddy Tegumai made the first alphabet. Rudyard Kipling first entertained his own children with these delightful, warm, and humorous stories, which he later wrote down for publication in 1902. Conjuring up distant lands and exotic jungles, they are bewitching for both children and adults. This sumptuous volume offers the complete and unabridged text, including the often-missing 13th story, "The Tabu Tal," which Kipling added for the American edition in 1903.