pictures reviewed

Eight stories, eight illustrators. Half are intriguing, the other half are slap-dash and boring.
Clare Melinsky makes excellent woodcuts for How the Camel Got Its Hump.
Cathie Felstead created several mixed-media for How the Leopard Got Its Spots.
Jane Ray’s characters are appealing in The Beginning of the Armadillos.
It would have added value to the book to have had the artists discuss their inspirations and methods.

Rudyard Kipling, Just So Stories, MA: Candlewick Press, 2004.

First published in 1902, Kipling's work was a series of "Pourquoi," or "Origin" stories of how certain phenomena came to be. The stories are fantastic, silly, and can easily entertain a child. One story is The Elephant's Child, an account of how the elephant got its long trunk. The Elephant's Child was curious about everything around him, yet whenever he asked questions about why something was the was it was to the other animals in the jungle, those animals would spank him. The Elephant's Child ventures off on a journey to find what an alligator eats - but when he meets the alligator, it bites his then short nose and pulled it until it was a long trunk. The other stories are just as entertaining, and the rich, colorful illustrations are sure to capture the reader's eye. The stories are certain to spark a child's imagination as each narrative takes the reader to different parts of the world and various environments from the jungle, to the ocean, and to the desert. A perfect read aloud book for children ages 6-9.

Recommended book from the same decade it was first published:
Jack London, Call of the Wild, NY: Macmillan, 1903. ( )