I loved the ‘Just So Stories’ when I was a child – especially “The Elephant’s Child”. If I were ever to go to Africa and see the Limpopo river, and it were not the
“great grey-green, greasy Limpopo river, all set about with fever-trees”
then I would be “’scrutiatingly” disappointed (just as I was when I first saw the Danube and it wasn’t blue) – part of my childhood would have been forever lost. So, when I saw that a book about Rudyard Kipling and his ‘Just So Stories’ had been written, I leapt at the chance to read it. I wanted to know what his inspiration had been for these magical tales, and also what the man behind them had been like – particularly given the current climate of re-evaluating past heroes according to today’s social standards.
The book allots a chapter to each of the ‘Just So Stories’, describes what was going on in Kipling’s life when the tale was written, and also discusses the wonderful illustrations that Kipling drew to accompany the stories, and the side comments that went with them.
Kipling was born in India, where he was happy, and spoke Hindi as his first language. He was then sent back to England, for schooling, where he was exceedingly unhappy. He returned to India aged 16 to become a journalist and writer. Throughout his life he travelled extensively, living in USA, Africa and returning to England.
He seemed to be interested in meeting people of other cultures, and in learning of their cultures, and incorporated some of the knowledge that he gained into his stories. At the same time, he decried the pettiness of many of his fellow Brits. BUT, he somehow still believed that the British had an innate superiority and that it was their right to conquer, subjugate and rule the world. He even suggested that taking over China might be a good thing for both China and the British Empire. He was a close friend of Cecil Rhodes, and his views on colonialism and race became more extreme as he grew older, and particularly after the tragic death of his “Best Beloved” daughter, Josephine, for (or later in memory of) whom many of the ‘Just So Stories’ were written (because she liked things to be just so).
Childhood memory plays fast and loose with childhood literature. Both I and my husband, were absolutely certain that the phrase
“pay heed and attend oh best beloved” ,
comes from the ‘Just So stories’, and indeed starts each story. It doesn’t. In fact, I could not find it anywhere in its entirety, though parts are scattered throughout. After reading ‘How the Just So Stories Were Made’, I went back to reread the ‘Just so Stories’ to see what else, I had misremembered, or missed entirely.
My childhood copy, I am sure, did not have all the illustrations – and certainly not the comments along side them. My current copy does, and is much more interesting because of it.
I also don’t remember all the spanking (especially in ‘The Elephant’s Child’) – not something that is acceptable today. The ‘right’ of white men to subjugate non-British peoples, women and all wild animals, would not have struck me as a child in reading these tales, but as an adult, is quite obvious. In ‘The Butterfly Who Stamped’, wives are put in their place – they should not argue with their husbands. However, in ‘The Cat that Walked by Himself’, women (specifically wives) are depicted as intelligent, and of equal status to men (albeit with different roles). This book claims that Kipling identified himself with the cat, and was very pleased to let his wife run the household and his life, so long as he could walk by himself when he felt he needed to.
Unlike the Victorian adage that ‘children should be seen and not heard’, in the ‘Just So Stories’ childhood curiosity is rewarded (‘The Elephant’s Child’), and children are listened to (‘How the First Letter was Written’ and ‘How the Alphabet was Made’) because they may have important ideas to communicate. Kipling clearly indulged his “Best Beloved” daughter Josephine, and modelled Taffy,
“Small-person-without-any-manners-who-ought-to-be-spanked”, on her.
‘How the Just So Stories Were Made’ is a fascinating insight into an outstanding children’s classic. Kipling is a very flawed human being. For some of his failings, there are reasons given in this book. For others, there is no excuse, particularly for someone as intelligent and widely travelled as Kipling was. However, ‘The Just So Stories’ are a masterpiece of imagination and story-telling. Read aloud, they have a rhythm and poetry that has seldom been equalled. Take note of Kipling’s many deficiencies, but don’t ban or Bowdlerise his works – and do buy a complete illustrated copy of the ‘Jut So Stories’.

John Batchelor’s latest book, How the Just So Stories Were Made, is published by Yale University Press. It devotes a chapter to each of the twelve original stories in the original 1902 British edition and an extra chapter, shared by the Tabu Tale from the American edition and Ham and the Porcupine from the 1935 Princess Elizabeth Gift Book.

Batchelor uses the tales to cast light upon aspects of Kipling’s life and vice-versa. I found it both interesting and perceptive. Although I have enjoyed many of Kipling’s books, I haven’t read the Just So stories. And although I knew Kipling lost his son, John, in WWI, I didn’t know his elder daughter, Josephine (known as Effie), died from pneumonia in 1899. Kipling also had pneumonia and it was thought he would die. He didn’t, but Effie did. Carrie Kipling kept the news from her husband for two weeks. On the day of the funeral, Kipling was delirious and poor Carrie went straight from her daughter’s funeral to Kipling’s bedside, hiding her mourning attire with a red scarf.

There are beautiful illustrations, not only from the Just So Stories, but also from Rudyard’s father, Lockwood Kipling. Batchelor’s scrutiny of the Just So illustrations shows us details that would easily be glanced over and missed.

Although Batchelor makes some astute points, based upon a lot of research, e.g. Kipling’s rupture with his brother-in-law, Beatty Balestier, the book is an easy read.

#HowtheJustSoStoriesWereMade #NetGalley

I enjoyed How The Just So Stories Were Made. It is interesting, readable and beautifully illustrated.

I was raised on the Just So Stories and The Jungle Books and have maintained an interest in Kipling all my reading life and I’m impressed with what John Batchelor has done here. He manages to interweave some fascinating references to influences on the Stories and their influence on others with biographical detail which is pertinent to the writing of the Stories themselves. A good deal of the biography was familiar to me, but there is much here that wasn’t and I found it all interesting in this context.

Batchelor’s analysis is well-informed and fair, I think. For example, he deals with racism elsewhere in Kipling’s writing, but also contrasts it with How The Leopard Got His Spots in which Kipling is “fully in accord with the Ethiopian.” These contradictions are a feature of Kipling’s work and it is good to see them acknowledged and analysed. (He also points out the clever and rather subversive way in which Kipling uses the verse from Jeremiah, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?” and the book is full of these insights.)

Many of the wonderful original illustrations from the book are reproduced here, along with other drawings by John Lockwood Kipling and photographs illustrating Kipling’s life. It is, quite rightly, rather scholarly in tone but it’s written in a very accessible way so, especially taken a couple of chapters at a time, I found it a rewarding read.

I think anyone who has ever read - or had read to them - the Just So Stories will enjoy this and get a great deal out of it. I can recommend it warmly.

(My thanks to Yale University Press for an ARC via NetGalley.)

This is a brisk and bouncy little book - full of hectic energy. Batchelor pegs his chapters to the the various Just So Stories, running through them and adding biographical and critical information as occasion suggests. It replicates a kind of oral storytelling whose artful risk-taking and flirting with chaos is the key to its contract with the reader - its a performance of a book and it has great appeal.

Batchelor quotes generously from each story as he introduces and this helps set the rhythm. His deliberate jumble-structure means he is always diving into Kipling’s life-story/story-life in the midst of things, which all need explaining (this dance-step manner of back-and-forth progress is also evident in the quoted passages of Kipling). As the different stories suggest different aspects of Kipling’s mind, art, and biography we are always in the middle of some or other new topic, angle, or anecdote. That to-ing and fro-ing, with many things happening at once, mirrors the way Kipling’s wrote and lived.

Kipling has been quite well served by biographers and critical editors. Batchelor, has read up on it all, but doesn’t want to add to that academic pile, so much as provide a well-informed book that seeks to capture Kipling’s enduring appeal. It will probably only take 2-3hrs to read through, which I think will encourage more people actually to read it through - and turn back to Kipling himself.

It reminded me of Roger Lancelyn Green’s short biographies of popular children’s writers (Andrew Lang, Kipling, J.M. Barrie, Mrs Molesworth, &c) - the point is to be fun about writers who were fun. I think this book wholly succeeds in its aim - best wishes to it!!