Just-So Stories, The Complete - Hardcover

Kipling, Rudyard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670851965 ISBN 13: 9780670851966

Publisher: Viking Juvenile, 1993

Synopsis

Presents twelve familiar stories--including the tale of the elephant child with the 'satiable curiosity who journeyed to the Limpopo river--along with two lesser-known pieces.

About this title

About the Author

Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay in 1865. During his time at the United Services College, he began to write poetry, privately publishing Schoolboy Lyrics in 1881. The following year he started work as a journalist in India, and while there produced a body of work, stories, sketches, and poems ���including ���Mandalay,��� ���Gunga Din,��� and ���Danny Deever������which made him an instant literary celebrity when he returned to England in 1889. While living in Vermont with his wife, an American, Kipling wrote The Jungle Books, Just So Stories, and Kim���which became widely regarded as his greatest long work, putting him high among the chronicles of British expansion. Kipling returned to England in 1902, but he continued to travel widely and write, though he never enjoyed the literary esteem of his early years. In 1907, he became the first British writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize. He died in 1936

Reviews

Grade 3 Up-This volume calls itself The Complete Just So Stories because it includes one additional Taffy adventure ("The Tabu Tale") not included in the first edition, as well as "Ham and the Porcupine," the last story of Kipling's career, neither of which are usually printed with the collection. These additions are neither better nor worse than the other just-sos: this volume's real distinguishing feature is its illustrations. Brent's colorful, realistic, slightly naive watercolors recall Persian miniatures in their composition and style. What makes them stand out is their borders, bright mosaics of tiny multicolored tesserae, rich with lapis blue and gleaming with gold, in varying geometric patterns. A narrow strip of similar design edges each page. This book is undeniably lovely, but those who purchased the edition with David Frampton's woodcuts (HarperCollins, 1991) or the version with Safaya Salter's paintings (Holt, 1987) should not feel any discontent either.
Patricia Dooley, formerly at University of Washington, Seattle
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

An edition distinguished by: (1) an intelligent introduction by scholar Neil Philip, pointing out the tales' links with Kipling family history and quoting a parody that appeared in Punch when they were first published (a ``Very-Nearly Story'' in which the ```defatigable Ruddikip'' addresses young ``Approximately Invaluable'' in ``decapitated polysyllables''); (2) two stories not included before: ``The Tabu Tale,'' a third story about Taffy (very long, even longer than ``The Cat...'' and the most didactic of all--Taffy learns to be still so that her father can hunt, one result being that it's possible to save her from a wolf), and ``Ham and the Porcupine,'' a why story that takes place on Noah's ark; (3) oversumptuous illustrations. The Just So's admirers will welcome the Taffy story; though it's not up to the others' caliber, the wordplay and parent-child interaction are amusingly characteristic. The briefer, brisker ``Ham'' is more fun; it makes a point of dark Ham becoming ``Emperor of Africa,'' with a typically euphonious string of place names. Brent provides postcard-sized watercolors--pretty but inappropriately static and humorless--that are completely overwhelmed by her elaborate gilded borders, to truly gorgeous decorative effect. Unfortunately, the art illuminates the pages but not the stories (which of course stand well enough on their own). A mixed success, but surely of interest. (Fiction. 4+) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Ages 3-5. Of all the editions of Kipling's stories available, this is surely one of the most splendid. Each page carries either text with a narrow, vertical border of painted geometric figures on the outer edge or a full-page illustration within a wide, richly patterned frame in related jewel-bright hues. The richness of colors in the paintings is heightened by the use of gold throughout the artwork. Handsomely designed and beautifully illustrated, this is a book that children will treasure for its opulent look as well as its opulent language. Carolyn Phelan

Edition details

• Publisher: Viking Juvenile
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0670851965
• ISBN 13: 9780670851966
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Brent Isabelle
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 160