The Man Who Wrote by Himself: Kipling’s Just So Stories
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library , Dr Oliver Tearle enjoys Kipling’s classic volume of tales for children
Rudyard Kipling has the dubious honour of being both famous and infamous in modern times. He is infamous for some because of his links with empire and the outdated views he is seen to have promoted regarding the British Empire, particularly in India, where he was born. But he remains one of the most famous writers of his age for The Jungle Book , ‘ If- ’, ‘Gunga Din’, Kim , Puck of Pook’s Hill , and the Just So Stories . The last of these, it has often been claimed, did for very young children’s literature what The Jungle Book had done for slightly more grown-up children. Moving away from the heavy-handed moralising and the condescending tone found in much Victorian and Edwardian children’s stories, Kipling offered, in the Just So Stories , a witty narrative voice and inventive little tales which talked to children rather than at them.
Until now, I’d always laboured under the belief that these tales were called Just So Stories because they’re about things being the way they are: it’s ‘just so’ that leopards have spots, camels have humps, and so on. But no: it’s only now I realise that they’re ‘just so’ stories because Kipling’s daughter Josephine (known as ‘Effie’), to whom he told many of these tales as bedtime stories, insisted that her father tell the stories to her ‘just so’, or in exactly the words she was used to. As Kipling later wrote of them, ‘in the evening there were stories meant to put Effie to sleep, and you were not allowed to alter those by one single little word. They had to be told just so; or Effie would wake up and put back the missing sentence. So at last they came to be like charms, all three of them – the whale tale, the camel tale, and the rhinoceros tale.’
And the tales are, in a sense, Lamarckian evolutionary origin-stories. If Lamarck thought that animals evolved with certain features because they inherited traits which their predecessors had cultivated over the course of their lives (rather than through genetic mutation and natural selection, which is the correction Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace provided), then Kipling’s Just So Stories are Lamarck off the leash, with tongue firmly in cheek. ‘How the Whale Got His Throat’ suggests that the whale’s throat is so small compared with the animal’s size because one whale swallowed a mariner, who blocked up the whale’s originally much larger throat to ensure that no further seafarers came a-cropper. ‘How the Camel Got His Hump’ explains that the humble ‘ship of the desert’ (or ‘horse designed by committee’ in Issigonis’s harsh words) got his ‘hump’ as a result of his ‘humph’ – that is, his moaning or ‘humphing’ at having to work, for which he was punished. ‘How the Leopard Got His Spots’ posits that leopards’ spots were originally painted on as a form of camouflage. ‘How the First Letter Was Written’ tells us how a family of cavepeople came up with the art of letter-writing.
Part of what makes the stories such a delight to revisit as an adult is the way Kipling offers them as amusing tales for children which also manage to carry deeper meaning. ‘ The Cat That Walked by Himself ’, for example, is a charming tale about a cat on one level, but it also hints at broader themes: the evolution of the home, for one, wittily suggesting as it does that the current domestic setup for Homo sapiens and their pet animals was a result of one family living in a cave at some distant point in mankind’s past, with all animals becoming domesticated – except for the cat, who insisted on remaining more independent and going his own way, or ‘walking by himself’. You can enjoy Kipling’s wonderful descriptions of an aloof cat, but you can also marvel at how he uses his story as a way of thinking about why and how domestication came about.
These are stories which encourage young readers to familiarise themselves with big questions: how animals became the way they are, why domestic society is the way it is, and how such a man-made thing as an alphabet is created. Kipling’s stories aren’t a treatise on evolution or the arbitrariness of human language, of course, but they encourage children with an inquisitive mind to start wondering why the world has turned out the way it is – or, if you will, and to make a virtue of my error, why things are ‘just so’.
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3 thoughts on “The Man Who Wrote by Himself: Kipling’s Just So Stories”
To add to the reading list for next year. Just So… I may re-appreciate them
I wish I lived near enough to my granddaughter to read them to her. I loved the sound of them as well as the ideas but I think the listener has to be the right age to really enjoy them. Once a modern child gets to about nine they probably wouldn’t be so receptive. I hope I’m wrong.
I read those when I was young. Interested in your comment about the origin of the title. I didn’t know that.
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JUST SO STORIES
by Rudyard Kipling ; illustrated by Ian Wallace ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 15, 2014
Wallace follows up his first volume of reillustrated Kipling pourquois tales (2013) with its companion.
Limpid mixed-media paintings depict Painted Jaguar lecturing the Stickly-Prickly Hedgehog (a tiny ball of spines), Tegumai the Neolithic man thigh-deep in the river lamenting his broken spear, and the Cat that walked by himself going deep into the Wet Wild Woods. Following the format of the earlier volume, one full-page painting opens each story, and then three more appear within, sometimes occupying a whole page and sometimes stretching across the tops of two and straddling the gutter. Appropriately for this illustrated book of stories, he focuses the cover on the pieces of birch bark from “How the First Letter Was Written” and “How the Alphabet Was Made,” held by Taffy Metallumai and her daddy; on the wraparound rear cover are Cat, Hedgehog and King Crab, all staring solemnly out at readers. Detailed illustrator’s notes explain Wallace’s approach, story by story, revealing connections among them and providing background information. He plants a smiling “wild thing” on Taffy’s Neolithic cave wall in homage to Sendak and uses pencil crayon, pastel pencil and chalk to “capture the scorching sun of a desert country” in another story. Glorious as the illustrations are, they complement rather than undercutting Kipling’s rolling lines: “But…when the moon gets up and night comes, he is the Cat that walks by himself, and all places are alike to him.”
Pub Date: April 15, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-55498-213-4
Page Count: 140
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
CHILDREN'S ANIMALS
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by Katherine Applegate ; illustrated by Patricia Castelao ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 7, 2024
Not the most satisfying wrap-up, but it’s always good to spend time in the world of this series.
Beloved gorilla Ivan becomes a father to rambunctious twins in this finale to a quartet that began with 2012’s Newbery Award–winning The One and Only Ivan .
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ISBN: 9780063221123
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
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Just So Stories Kindle Edition
- Print length 83 pages
- Language English
- Grade level Kindergarten - 2
- Publisher Open Road Media Young Readers
- Publication date April 21, 2020
- Page Flip Enabled
- Word Wise Enabled
- Enhanced typesetting Enabled
- Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe
- See all details
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Product details
- ASIN : B08746CQTF
- Publisher : Open Road Media Young Readers (April 21, 2020)
- Publication date : April 21, 2020
- Language : English
- File size : 26163 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 83 pages
- #62 in Children's Folk Tales & Myth Anthologies
- #371 in Children's Folk Tale & Myth Anthologies
- #816 in Children's Classic Literature
About the authors
Rudyard kipling.
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was born in Bombay in December 1865. He returned to India from England shortly before his seventeenth birthday, to work as a journalist first on the Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore, then on the Pioneer at Allahabad. The poems and stories he wrote over the next seven years laid the foundation of his literary reputation, and soon after his return to London in 1889 he found himself world-famous. Throughout his life his works enjoyed great acclaim and popularity, but he came to seem increasingly controversial because of his political opinions, and it has been difficult to reach literary judgements unclouded by partisan feeling.
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An unusually handsome presentation of these classic stories, with sophisticated woodcuts that will commend it especially (but not exclusively) to older children. Frampton provides one full- page color illustration for each story, with a broad border of a reiterated motif from the story framing a closely structured composition—boldly stylized yet reflecting the story's lively action and wit ...
The wraparound jacket presents a surreal dreamscape that encapsulates the transformations Kipling describes in his stories. On the back, a humpless camel and short-nosed elephant enjoy a moonlit dip, while their reflections reveal hump and trunk; on the front, a short-legged kangaroo, smooth-skinned rhino and spotless leopard likewise appear ...
April 18, 2024. Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories, originally published in 1902, are perennial favourites, and can be read by adults and children alike. They are known as "pourquoi" stories; in this case fantasies about the origin of individual wild animals who live in different countries. The seed of the idea lies in the story "How Fear Came ...
As Kipling later wrote of them, 'in the evening there were stories meant to put Effie to sleep, and you were not allowed to alter those by one single little word. They had to be told just so; or Effie would wake up and put back the missing sentence. So at last they came to be like charms, all three of them - the whale tale, the camel tale ...
Wallace follows up his first volume of reillustrated Kipling pourquois tales (2013) with its companion. Limpid mixed-media paintings depict Painted Jaguar lecturing the Stickly-Prickly Hedgehog (a tiny ball of spines), Tegumai the Neolithic man thigh-deep in the river lamenting his broken spear, and the Cat that walked by himself going deep into the Wet Wild Woods.
Just So Stories. Just So Stories for Little Children is a 1902 collection of origin stories by the British author Rudyard Kipling. Considered a classic of children's literature, the book is among Kipling's best known works. Kipling began working on the book by telling the first three chapters as bedtime stories to his daughter Josephine.
4.00. 1 rating0 reviews. One of the world's greatest storytellers weaves together an unforgettable collection of animal tales, including how the camel got its hump, how the leopard got its spots, and how even a butterfly stamping his leg can change a man's life. Initially written for his own "best beloved," Just So Stories was published in 1902.
Analysis. Last Updated September 6, 2023. Rudyard Kipling's beloved classic Just So Stories for Little Children (first published in 1902) had its origins in three bedtime stories Kipling ...
After his marriage Kipling settled in America, and it was here that he wrote The Jungle Book. He then moved with his family to England, where he wrote Just So Stories for his daughter Josephine who later tragically died of pneumonia. Rudyard Kipling was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907 and died on 18 January 1936.
Just So Stories. The Camel gets his Hump, the Whale his Throat, and the Leopard his Spots in these bewitching stories that conjure up distant lands, the beautiful gardens of splendid palaces, and the jungle and its creatures. Inspired by Rudyard Kipling's delight in human eccentricities and the animal world, and based on bedtime stories he told ...
Summary. Last Updated September 6, 2023. Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling is a collection of stories, most of which can be categorized as pourquoi tales. Such stories are folktales that seek to ...
I grew up listening to these fabulous stories by Rudyard Kipling, read by the incomparable Boris Karloff (as described for this product). What was delivered was different, a different collection of stories (yes, they are Kipling's Just Sot Stories) read by Geoffrey Palmer, who does a nice job, but that is not what is advertised and what I expected.
About Just So Stories. A relentlessly inventive collection of myths that betray a deep love and respect for the natural worldA Penguin Classic The Camel gets his Hump, the Whale his Throat, and the Leopard his Spots in these bewitching stories that conjure up distant lands, the beautiful gardens of splendid palaces, and the jungle and its ...
The stories, first published in 1902, are pourquoi stories, fantastic accounts of how various phenomena came about. A forerunner of these stories is "How Fear Came" in The Second Jungle Book (1895), in which Mowgli hears the story of how the tiger got his stripes.Joseph Rudyard Kipling (December 30, 1865 - January 18, 1936) was an English author and poet, born in India, and best known today ...
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was born in Bombay in December 1865. He returned to India from England shortly before his seventeenth birthday, to work as a journalist first on the Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore, then on the Pioneer at Allahabad.
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.
s and sit on the farmyard rails! Let's say things to the bunnies, d watch 'em skitter their tails! Let's--oh, anything, daddy, so long as it's you and me, And going truly ex. ring, and not being in till tea! Here's your boots (I've brought 'em), and here's your cap and stick, And here's your pipe and tobacc.
Drawn from the wondrous tales told to Kipling as a child by his Indian nurses, Just So Stories creates the magical enchantment of the dawn of the world, when animals could talk and think like people. The laziness of the Camel, the curiosity of the Elephant's Child, the cleverness of the Hedgehog, the confusion of the Painted Jaguar, and all ...
00:14:49 - We begin a new journey in a book written by Rudyard Kipling titled " Just So Stories". Have you ever wondered how the Elephant got its trunk, or th…
Kipling wrote equally well for children and adults. His best-known children's books are Just So Stories (1902), The Jungle Books (1894-95), and Kim (1901). His short stories, although their understanding of the Indian is often moving, became minor hymns to the glory of Queen Victoria's empire and the civil servants and soldiers who staffed her ...
Just So Stories. Paperback - November 4, 2013. by Rudyard Kipling (Author) 4.3 1,748 ratings. See all formats and editions. 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 ...
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) is the Nobel Prize-winning author of such classics as Kim, The Jungle Book, and the Just So Stories. Robert Ingpen has designed, illustrated, and written more than 100 published works of fiction and nonfiction, among them The Jungle Book and the centenary edition of Peter Pan and Wendy. In 1986 he was awarded the ...
Kipling's own illustrations that make Just So Stories one of the few enduring classics of children's literature that G. K. Chesterton called 'Fairy tales told to men in the morning of the world.'This new impression includes Kipling's well-loved The Jungle Book, a quite different set of stories that introduce the orphan Mowgli who runs with a ...
Kindle Edition. 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 ...