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Just So Stories

By Rudyard Kipling
Illustrated by Paul Bransom and J. M. Gleeson

For Mowgli movie fans, the must-have companion to The Jungle Book!

Children all around the world are fascinated by the animal kingdom, and that’s what makes the Just So Stories a perennial classic… Elephants, kangaroos, cats, leopards, and more. This complete volume of Rudyard Kipling’s masterpiece includes all 12 original 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 Butterfly that Stamped

    Kipling first entertained his own children with these delightful and humorous tales before deciding to write them down for publication. The parables are written in the form of what came to be known as “why” stories, each explaining how and why certain things came to be as they are.

    In addition to these clever fables, this volume features thirteen full-color illustrations and more than thirty black-and-white illustrations by J. M. Gleeson and Paul Bransom, as well as several images created by Kipling himself. With their entertaining characters and well-executed narrative arcs, the Just So Stories are perfect for readers both young and old—to read separately and, more importantly, together.

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    Rudyard Kipling

    Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay, India, in 1865. One of the most revered writers in recent history, many of his works are deemed classic literature. To this day, he maintains an avid following and reputation as one of the greatest storytellers of the past two centuries. In 1907, he received the Nobel Prize for Literature. He died in 1936, but his stories live on—even eighty years after his passing.

    “They’ve delighted both adults and children for nearly eight decades. What keeps the dust off Kipling is his unharnessed imagination and language so playful it begs to be read aloud.”
    –Los Angeles Times

    “Graceful prose and pungent humor… In the same league with such children’s classics as Winnie the Pooh and Alice in Wonderland… Kipling’s fantastic fictions hark to a golden age of storytelling.”
    –Publishers Weekly

    “It has, like all good fairy-business, a sound core of philosophy.”
    –Atlantic Monthly

    “Intimately told… Extraordinary ingenuity and inventiveness.”
    –Guardian

    “They’ve delighted both adults and children for nearly eight decades. What keeps the dust off Kipling is his unharnessed imagination and language so playful it begs to be read aloud.”
    –Los Angeles Times

    “Graceful prose and pungent humor… In the same league with such children’s classics as Winnie the Pooh and Alice in Wonderland… Kipling’s fantastic fictions hark to a golden age of storytelling.”
    –Publishers Weekly

    “It has, like all good fairy-business, a sound core of philosophy.”
    –Atlantic Monthly

    “Intimately told… Extraordinary ingenuity and inventiveness.”
    –Guardian

    Just So Stories

    By Rudyard Kipling
    Illustrated by Paul Bransom and J. M. Gleeson

    More books from this author: Rudyard Kipling