Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories

When I was a librarian, there was a purist school of thought that authors and publishers should not mess about with classic tales. Nursery versions of Peter Pan or Alice in Wonderland were not acceptable. Abridgements of any kind were abhorrent. Disney was an abomination. Having cut my reading teeth on the long forgotten Regency classics which you could buy for half a crown in the local newsagents, I have never felt that precious about classic texts. So I am happy to consider this illustrated rhyming version of Kipling’s Just So stories. It includes the five best known tales: about the whale, the camel, the rhinoceros, the elephant’s child, and the cat that walked by himself. And it’s not bad at all. Elli Woollard’s rhymes jog along smoothly, using some of Kipling’s word coining, somehow gesturing towards the rhythms of his prose, and following his narratives closely.

Marta Alté’s illustrations are jolly and colourful. Some parents, grandparents and teachers will continue to prefer the tang of the real thing to tickle younger taste buds. After all, the stories were written to share with children and, even after a century, read aloud surprisingly well. But this is an acceptable low fat picture book alternative, which may be less intimidating to a modern reader in a familiar format, and which does away with much of the original’s deliberate archness, while retaining its relish for language.