Isn't that somehow a demonstration of Satan Devil and mankind? Don't you think that the writer is trying to reach a message to readers? This is how atheists are made, thinking that their creator is unfair, and that Iblis is innocent! Please reread children stories and think of the story essence and the messages coming through before ever handing it to a kid. Hope that helps. Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving….
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Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling. Librarian's Note: Alternate cover edition can be found here. Get A Copy. Hardcover , pages. Published August 5th by Gramercy Books first published More Details Original Title.
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Dan that is correct. Was this the first book Rudyard Kipling wrote? Orinoco Womble tidy bag and all No, indeed. His first book of stories, "Plain Tales from the Hills" was published in This book was published in , and he had published quite …more No, indeed. This book was published in , and he had published quite a lot in between. See all 3 questions about Just So Stories…. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 4. Rating details. More filters.
Sort order. Start your review of Just So Stories. And even though he constantly had to carry around a White Man's Burden an object, by the way, which he had invented himself, and very proud he was of it too , he was as happy as the day is long. And he would often stop for a moment, and sing a little song he'd written, which began Mamma Pajama rolled out of bed and ran to the po-lice sta How The Kipling Got His Reputation Once upon a time, Best Beloved, when the world was middle-aged and good Queen Victoria sat on the throne, there was a Kipling.
And he would often stop for a moment, and sing a little song he'd written, which began Mamma Pajama rolled out of bed and ran to the po-lice station and ended Seein' me and Sambo down by the Rudyard Maybe you know a song that's a bit like that, Best Beloved, and you're wondering why this one is different?
But we'll get to that shortly. So one day, the Kipling was carrying his White Man's Burden and singing his song, when, in a great flash, a Time Traveler appeared. The Kipling was amazed, for he had never seen any kind of DeLorean before, much less one capable of temporal displacement. And as soon as they had had the usual awkward conversation about which century am I in and so on and so forth I am sure you know all about this, Best Beloved , the Kipling was of course eager to know what the wonderful future world was like.
Could the Time Traveler tell him anything about it? As it happened, the Time Traveler had a newspaper with him from the year ; and he showed the Kipling the front page, where, wonder of wonders, you could see a full-color daguerreotype of Queen Victoria III shaking hands with her dear friend, President John McCain of the United States of America.
Behind them, there was a map of the world; and the Kipling was very pleased to see that most of it was a pretty pink, except for a piece on the left which was stars-and-stripes color. He was just about to express his appreciation, when the Time Traveler unfortunately raised his foot, and stepped on a butterfly that had landed next to him. Now, Best Beloved, I need hardly tell you that if there is one thing a Time Traveler must never, ever, do, it is to step on a butterfly.
Before their horrified eyes, everything changed. The Kipling looked round wildly: his White Man's Burden was gone! But what you do have, in case you haven't noticed, is a Reputation. The Kipling suddenly had a horrible Reputation, which stuck to him; do what he would, he couldn't shake it off.
He tried singing his song, thinking that might cheer him up, but it didn't come out the way it was supposed to. Finally, he looked again at the Time Traveler's newspaper, and could hardly believe what he saw. And the person he's shaking hands with, the President of the United States, is an Before the Kipling could reply, the Time Traveler got back into his DeLorean, and disappeared with another flash.
And try as he would, the poor Kipling could never get rid of his Reputation; and he thought it very unfair, because after all it had been the Time Traveler who had stepped on the butterfly.
But life, sadly, is often like that. View all 52 comments. Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories , originally published in , 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," within Rudyard Kipling's "Second Jungle Book" of , when Mowgli hears the story of how the tiger got his stripes.
It is possible this gave the author the idea for a w Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories , originally published in , are perennial favourites, and can be read by adults and children alike. It is possible this gave the author the idea for a whole collection. The stories are told quite colloquially, in a chatty, entertaining style. Apart from some stylistic whimsical quirks, such as the narrator frequently calling the reader, "O my Best beloved" , or commands such as, "Be quiet, O you person without any form," from the characters, they feel surprisingly modern and inventive.
The recurring theme is of a particular animal being modified from its original form by the acts of Man, who is represented as just another creature, or by some magical being. As the tortoise becomes more able to curl himself into a ball, and the hedgehog teaches himself how to swim, they begin to resemble their original forms less and less.
In the end they are virtually indistinguishable, and the mother jaguar recommends to Painted Jaguar that he call them "Armadillo" until he finds out their proper name.
The narrator comments, "So that's all right Best Beloved. Do you see? A djinn punishes the camel's refusal to work for three days, by saying that he must work longer between times of eating, and must live on his "Humph!
For the purposes of the story, then, the animals are heavily anthropomorphised. They do however retain features of the present-day animal's behaviour, and some vocabulary from the countries where the animals live is often included. There are also some whole-page water-colour illustrations, all by Meg Rutherford. For the original book of 13 stories in , Rudyard Kipling provided his own illustrations from wood-cuts.
The stories seem timeless, and this fact, plus their imaginative and fantastical content, goes a good way to explaining their continued popularity. They can be read aloud over and over again, and never seem to lose their whimsical charm. View 2 comments.
Feb 18, Brad rated it did not like it Shelves: read-to-scoutie , bedtime-book , shite , infuriating , ugh. What an infuriating book. I don't know what infuriates me more: that Kipling was a racist imperialist colonizer who believed firmly in white superiority and conveyed that in every word of these stories; or that Kipling is such a marvelous writer of the English language. Kipling the colonizer, imperialist, racist, supremicist, had no trouble at all mugging the oral traditions of the peoples his people colonized to tell his "Just So Stories" to his Best Beloved.
No trouble at all mimicking their vo What an infuriating book. Kipling's Just So Stories are propaganda at its most magical. They're friendly propaganda. They're propaganda of subtlety. And Kipling was a master. And it works so well because Kipling was so talented. Love him or hate him, I think it would be difficult to make a case that he was an untalented writer. What Kipling could do and did do repeatedly with the English language was astounding.
He was a master. And his gifts were such that even today countless people I know personally, who consider themselves enlightened folk, make excuses for Kipling. The most common excuse I hear is, "He's a product of his time.
Many were anti-Colonial, anti-Imperial, and not racist at all. Many of Kipling's contemporaries saw colonized peoples as victims, human beings deserving of dignity, not "sullen peoples" to be brought "toward the light. I read this to my youngest daughter, my two year old, and she seemed to be dazzled by the sound Kipling's words made coming out of my mouth.
I am hoping she's too young for any of his meaning to take seed in that fertile ground. Because the seeds of Kipling bear only ugly fruit. One last scary thought: what would the world be like if someone like Hitler had had the literary talent of Kipling. It makes me shudder. View all 39 comments. Feb 10, Martin rated it it was amazing Shelves: childrens , humour , myths-legends , recently-reviewed , fantasy.
Later I would re-read these stories along with the Jungle Book stories, which made Kipling famous. I laughed when the Elephant's Child asked his relatives what the crocodile has for dinner and got spanked by them. However I was worried when he actually met the crocodile, who bit his nose and began pulling him into the river.
The Just So Stories are good to read as a child, to read again as an adult, and then to retell to grandchildren. View all 3 comments. This was an adorably sweet collection of stories, aimed at younger readers and all centring around the themes of animals. Whilst not scientifically correct in the least, this offered the reader a series of fun anecdotes about how various different animals got their defining features, such as a leopard and his spots and an elephant with his trunk.
He wrote them down for publication as the Just So Stories in , just three years after the tragic death of the daughter for whom they had first been invented.
During the 20th century, generations of children were tucked into bed with readings of highly imaginative and wildly improbably explanations such as how the elephant got his trunk. When he was only five, Kipling and his sister, Alice, were taken back to England and left with foster parents in Southsea, where he attended a small private school.
The colourful sights and sounds — and freedoms- of India were sorely missed. At 12 he was sent to boarding school in Devon. Four years later he was back in India and working in Lahore as a journalist on two newspapers. In his spare time he penned poems and short stories. These were first printed in the newspapers, and then published as books.
Through his travels all over in India, he absorbed knowledge of Hindu customs and ways of thinking, though his experience of British colonial life remained central to his disposition. By the time Kipling returned to England in , he was already a successful author, specialising in stories of heroism and masculine fellowship. Three years later he married the sister of an American friend and moved to Vermont, where his two daughters were born.
There he wrote his first books for children: the two Jungle Books. Tragedy struck early in when his beloved first daughter, Josephine died of fever. At the same time Kipling moved to a secluded 17th-century house called Batemans in the Sussex village of Burwash, where he lived until his death in In , he wrote them down for publication as the Just So Stories.
They are written in an amusing grand style, peppered with long, and delightfully unlikely, invented words - a comical exaggeration perhaps of the formal ways of speaking Kipling heard in India. He was offered the honour of a knighthood in and again in Both times he refused.
But he did accept the Nobel Prize for Literature in I've found that they're best-suited to children aged between three and six but have also read them to children aged up to eight.
Each of the J ust-So Stories tells of an animal which is changed from its original form to its current form by the act of a man or of some magical being. For example, How the Camel got his Hump tells the story of how a hump was given to the camel by a djinn as punishment for the camel refusing to work so that the camel would be able to work longer between feedings.
Some of the tales also have a moral or a cautionary message to them which was common with stories written for children in Kipling's day. For example, the camel was punished because he was lazy.
The original editions of the stories were illustrated by Kipling himself. The black-and-white drawing above is one of Kipling's illustrations for The Elephant's Child. It's called How Fear Came in which Mowgli hears the story of how the tiger got his stripes. The Just-So Stories were originally published together in one book.
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