Rudyard Kipling: Just So Stories

 

At the beginning of time, the animals were quite different from the ones we see today. Can you imagine a zebra with no stripes or a leopard with no spots? The first elephant did not have a trunk to swat flies with. He just had a nose.

 

The child of the first elephant asked lots of questions. He even asked the nasty crocodile what he ate for dinner. The crocodile did not answer. He just took hold of the elephant's nose with his teeth. The crocodile had a greedy look in his eyes! Can you guess what happened next?

 

Read these strange and amazing stories to discover many other wonderful things about animals.

 

Rudyard Kipling: Just So Stories. Oxford Progressive English Readers; Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1994

Grade 1 (1,400 headwords)