Just So Stories: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Just So Stories, credited to Rudyard Kipling, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of the Just So Stories, by Rudyard Kipling. Read by Kara Shallenberg. The stories, first published in 1902, are fantastic accounts of how various natural phenomena came about. The original editions of Just So Stories were illustrated with woodcuts by Kipling himself. Many of the stories are addressed to "Best Beloved" (they were first written for Kipling's eldest daughter, Josephine, who had died during an outbreak of influenza in 1899), and throughout they use a comically elevated style inspired by the formal speech of India, full of long and improbable-sounding words, some of them made up. As a result, it is a delight to read them aloud, and easy to memorise passages from them. (Summary from Wikipedia) Read along online and see the illustrations at mainlesson.com.

Recording facts

• Recording title: Just So Stories
• Author credits: Rudyard Kipling
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 12
• Listed recording duration: 3:12:15

Catalogue topics

• kipling
• just so
• animals
• children

Track guide

1. 01 How the Whale Got His Throat — 7:18
2. 02 How The Camel Got His Hump — 7:11
3. 03 How The Rhinoceros Got His Skin — 5:54
4. 04 How the Leopard Got His Spots — 14:06
5. 05 The Elephant's Child — 17:04
6. 06 The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo — 8:23
7. 07 The Beginning of the Armadillos — 17:06
8. 08 How the First Letter was Written — 21:45
9. 09 How The Alphabet Was Made — 25:01
10. 10 The Crab that Played with the Sea — 21:17
11. 11 The Cat that Walked by Himself — 24:46
12. 12 The Butterfly that Stamped — 22:32

Listen to this recording

Open the complete recording and player on Internet Archive. The player includes the full track list and available download formats.

Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.