Just So Stories

Rudyard Kipling

Jun 2013 · Random House

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'Hear and attend and listen; for this befell and behappened and became and was'

Have you ever enquired why the elephant has such an enormously elongated nose? Are you confused by a cat's contrary nature? Have you ruminated on the wrinkles of a rhinocerous? Or speculated on a leopard's spots? Rudyard Kipling wondered about all these things too, and in this marvellous collection of stories he imagines how the animals became 'just so'.

Includes exclusive material: In the Backstory you can find out why Just So Stories is one of Philip Pullman’s favourite books and discover wacky facts about wild animals!

Vintage Children’s Classics is a twenty-first century classics list aimed at 8-12 year olds and the adults in their lives. Discover timeless favourites from The Jungle Book and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to modern classics such as The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

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Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay in India in 1865 to British parents, and brought up by a Portuguese ‘ayah’ (nanny) and an Indian servant, who would entertain him with fabulous stories and Indian nursery rhymes. He was sent back to England when he was seven years old, and lived in a boarding house with a couple who were cruelly strict. Fortunately he returned to India aged sixteen, to work as the assistant editor of a newspaper in Lahore. He began publishing stories and poems and eventually had great success with his book Plain Tales from the Hills. 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.