Just So
The tales of Rudyard Kipling
For the last month-or-so, Gentle Readers, I have been doing a long slow Christmas gift for my sister Juniper. I’ve been reading a chapter of a book (more or less, depending on how long it is) and illustrating it, then putting it up on Youtube so she can listen whenever she likes. My mother tells me that she misses hearing our voices, my other sister and my Dad and I, so this was a way I could make certain she got to hear me, as she’s not great about the telephone. There are ways to say ‘I love you’ which don’t use any of those words, per se.
I’d started out with The Princess and the Goblin, and after finishing that I dove back into the Just So Stories to finish them off (having used one to try out my audio setup early on in the process). I chose the Just So partly because people who had been listening in along with my sister asked for them, and partly because I myself loved some of them. Kipling is and was a sagacious observer of humans and animals alike. My favorite of the Just So Stories is The Cat Who Walked by Himself, and it really captures the cat personality. Some of the Just So Stories I had completely forgotten, and others, like yesterday’s bedtime tale, The Butterfly Who Stamped, I either never read, or it went entirely over my head as a child, or perhaps I associated it with The Arabian Nights (there is a certain flavor to the tale). Which is part of the delight of doing this project. I’m reading my way back into the classics of childhood, and as a woman and an author, I appreciate them far more this time around.
We change, as we grow and learn and develop through life, and the books we loved as children change with us. If they are good books, that is. There are books I couldn’t go back and tolerate reading again as an adult. There are books - both of these, and Rikki Tikki Tavi which I am already recording - that I am rediscovering with joy in the mastery of their authors.
The Just So Stories also give me a glimpse into the family life of one of my favorite authors. After listening to one of the Taffy stories, my mother asked me if Kipling had daughters. He did, I replied, two of ‘em! I thought so, my mother dear said, you can tell from how he writes the father-daughter interactions.
Even in these stories intended for children (and all three Taffy stories are teaching-tales, Gentle Reader) you get a look at Kipling’s wry and irreverent humor. The story which has Solomon and the Queen of Sheba in it also had butterflies and quarreling in it, and frankly couldn’t be published in this modern era of easily-bruised sensibilities. Which is silly, but there we are. In reading the stories, I hope to preserve them and keep them evergreen for a while longer. If you know of small people who could use teaching-tales or just stories for their bedtimes and you haven’t the confidence yourself to read out to them (but you should!) then you might share this with their parents.
I own more of the Kipling books of poetry, novels, and oddments than I do the children’s books. I got a nice 1903 edition of the Just So Stories partway through my reading of the stories. It was intended to add to a partial set which I found at a used bookstore years ago, but as I looked at the table of contents, I was surprised to discover it contained a story which the version on Project Gutenberg I was using for reading omitted. I’ve been using the PG version since I can make it very large text on my screen and read easily while managing the slide-show of illustrations with one hand. From now on, I’ll be relying on the books I own, instead! The story left out is The Tabu Tale, and it’s a delightful teaching-story of a little girl growing up and learning how to mind her mummy and daddy. I’m very glad I discovered it and could add it in.
Out of most ‘scruciating curiosity (as I rather resemble the Elephant’s Child, Dear Reader, which you might have noticed before this) I pulled my versions of the Just So Stories and took a look at the tables of contents. As you can see, the 1903 edition contains more tales than the 1965 edition. The mystery begins to resolve - I grew up reading the 1965 Companion Library version and so did my mother. Neither of us could remember the missing stories… likely we’d never gotten to read them before!
You are never too old to learn something. And as an author, I am rediscovering the pleasure in these children’s tales, and why they are still worth reading and studying. I’m very much enjoying Rikki Tikki Tavi, which has always been a favorite, and if you would like to join in the Bedtime Stories listeners, you might subscribe to my Youtube channel, o Best of Readers who art most sagacious.
And if you enjoy this place where I write essays, you might also subscribe to it, which won’t cost you a thing other than the time in reading it. I do thank you!
I wish I had these the year I taught 2nd Grade to share with the kids as a treat for their hard work. I'm sharing the videos with my nephew, whose boy just turned 2. 🙇♂️
& yo momma proudly and justly lauded you, over on MeWe, for doing so some months back.
I'm reminded of a Japanese friend, one of her son's favorites was the Japanese edition of Joyce's The Cat and the Devil which she read to him often. Years later they were visiting France and while in Beaugency both were quite excited to see the very bridge the cat crossed! ;-)