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How the Alphabet Was Made

From Just So Stories, by Rudyard Kipling

This story was first published in 1902, part of Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories — playful tales that imagine how things came to be. Kipling (1865–1936) was a British writer who loved to tell stories that mixed humour, invention and a sense of wonder. This text reflects its era; a few period terms have been modernised. The story is worth a child's time because it shows how curiosity and invention can solve problems, how a parent and child working together can create something new, and how the tools we use every day — like letters — had to be imagined by someone, once, long ago.

Band

Yellow · Emerging readersTypical starting range: ages 6–8

Length

medium · about 507 words in 6 sections · 4 pictures

Source

Just so stories, Rudyard Kipling

First published

1902

Regions

Canada · United States

Included formats

• · Web reader and PDF
• · EPUB for e-readers
• · Home-print sheet
• · Folded booklet
• · Binder edition (8.5 × 11)
• · Worksheet
• · Quick Check (8 questions) with answer key
• · Read-aloud script
• · Colouring page
• · Teacher’s Edition (members)

Readers are engineered from the original public-domain text with AI under HummingRead’s published canon and Content Philosophy, checked by automated audit and sampled by a person. Pictures are made with AI to HummingRead’s brief for each story. How a reader is made.

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