Just So Stories

by
Rudyard Kipling


The Just So Stories for Little Children are among Kipling's best known and loved works. This recording aims to be the first complete audio book of this title with nothing left out.

The Nobel prize-winning author's enjoyment in playing with the sounds and meanings of words is very evident throughout, and adds to adults' enjoyment of these stories for children. This playfulness is also dramatically present in the plotting. For both reasons these stories been loved by generations of children and adults alike. Because the writing plays with sound and meaning the Just So Stories are best enjoyed when read aloud.

As we all are, Kipling was a child of his time and social setting, so for example in "How the Leopard Got his Spots" he uses what one recent reviewer called "the N word" to refer to the Ethiopian. Each listener will need to examine critically both Kipling's attitudes and their own.

As well as the twelve stories most often published under this title (from the first British edition) it also includes "The Tabu Tale" a thirteenth story (included in the first US edition). The last story Kipling wrote "Ham and the Porcupine" is also a just so story, but has not usually been collected with the others, and perhaps lacks their verve and wordplay. The Kipling Society publishes an excellent freely available online edition with a good set of notes on the text.

The stories are fanciful, and not intended to offer historical, scientific or religious accounts of the way things became. They are simply and exquisitely stories to enjoy.


01 How the Whale got his Throat
02 How the Camel got his Hump
03 How the Rhinoceros got his Skin
04 How the Leopard got his Spots
05 The Elephant's Child
06 The Sing-song of Old Man Kangaroo
07 The Beginning of the Armadillos
08 How the First Letter was Written
09 How the Alphabet was Made
10 The Crab that Played with the Sea
11 The Cat who Walked by Himself
12 The Tabu Tale
13 The Butterfly that Stamped

Read by Tim Bulkeley

Approx Run time: 4 Hours