Have You Read the 'Just So Stories'? Quiz

Answer:

The stories were written as bedtime stories for his daughter and are very creative. My favourite is 'The Elephant's Child', and have never forgotten the beautiful alliteration of the "great grey-green, greasy Limpopo", where a crocodile helped cure the 'satiable curiosity' of the baby elephant, by stretching his nose into a trunk. 'The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo' explains why kangaroos hop (apparently they used to walk just like most other animals!).

Various other animals got the Kipling treatment: the whale got a narrow throat, the lazy camel got a hump, the rhinoceros got wrinkly skin, the leopard got black spots, and the armadillo came into being as a fusion of a hedgehog and a tortoise.

He even told of the invention of the alphabet in two stories, 'How the First Letter Was Written' and 'How the Alphabet Was Made'.

All up, there were 12 tales in the collection and this delightful book has been reprinted many, many times.

The wrong answers are all genuine books or stories. 'The Loaded Dog' is a hilarious Australian short story written by Henry Lawson in 1901, about a friendly dog and a stick of dynamite. 'The Wonky Donkey' was released in 2009 by New Zealand author, Craig Smith. 'Frog and Toad are Friends' is part of a four-book series, released in the 1970s by Arnold Lobel. 'The Lion and the Mouse' was written quite some time ago - it is one of Aesop's Fables, written over 2,500 years ago. And I am sure you will recognise 'Green Eggs and Ham', a Dr Seuss masterpiece.