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 Tim Bulkeley. The Just So Stories for Little Children are among Kipling's best known and loved works. This recording aims to be the first complete audio book of this title with nothing left out. The Nobel prize-winning author's enjoyment in playing with the sounds and meanings of words is very evident throughout, and adds to adults' enjoyment of these stories for children. This playfulness is also dramatically present in the plotting. For both reasons these stories been loved by generations of children and adults alike. Because the writing plays with sound and meaning the Just So Stories are best enjoyed when read aloud. As we all are, Kipling was a child of his time and social setting, so for example in "How the Leopard Got his Spots" he uses what one recent reviewer called "the N word" to refer to the Ethiopian. Each listener will need to examine critically both Kipling's attitudes and their own. This recording of the Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling includes Kipling's descriptions of the pictures he drew for the book. These pictures can be found in a PDF file to accompany each chapter. As well as the twelve stories most often published under this title (from the first British edition) it also includes "The Tabu Tale" a thirteenth story (included in the first US edition). The last story Kipling wrote "Ham and the Porcupine" is also a just so story, but has not usually been collected with the others, and perhaps lacks their verve and wordplay. The Kipling Society publishes an excellent freely available online edition with a good set of notes on the text. The stories are fanciful, and not intended to offer historical, scientific or religious accounts of the way things became. They are simply and exquisitely stories to enjoy. So please enjoy them in this reading. (Introduction by Tim Bulkeley)

Recording facts

• Recording title: Just So Stories
• Author credits: Rudyard Kipling
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 13
• Listed recording duration: 4:02:42

Catalogue topics

• children
• kipling
• leopard
• elephant's child
• butterfly
• cat
• whale
• camel

Track guide

1. 01 How the Whale got his Throat — 9:38
2. 02 How the Camel got his Hump — 9:15
3. 03 How the Rhinoceros got his Skin — 8:06
4. 04 How the Leopard got his Spots — 15:50
5. 05 The Elephant's Child — 17:52
6. 06 The Sing-song of Old Man Kangaroo — 10:12
7. 07 The Beginning of the Armadillos — 18:54
8. 08 How the First Letter was Written — 21:12
9. 09 How the Alphabet was Made — 26:06
10. 10 The Crab that Played with the Sea — 25:50
11. 11 The Cat who Walked by Himself — 25:37
12. 12 The Tabu Tale — 31:20
13. 13 The Butterfly that Stamped — 23:51

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.