How did the camel get his hump? Why won't cats do as they are told"? Who invented reading and writing? How did an inquisitive little elephant change the lives of elephants everywhere? Kipling's imagined answers to such questions draw on the beast fables he heard as a child in India, as well as on folk traditions he later collected all over the world. He plays games with language, exploring the relationships between thought, speech, and written word.
