The Elephant's Child

Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay in 1865. In 1871 he was brought home from India and spent five unhappy years with a foster family in Southsea. It was during his time at college that he began writing poetry, and Schoolboy Lyrics was published privately in 1881. In 1892 he married an American, Caroline Balestier, and from 1892 to 1896 they lived in Vermont, where Kipling wrote The Jungle Book, published in 1894. In 1901 came Kim and in 1902 the Just So Stories. Kipling refused to accept the role of Poet Laureate and other civil honours, but he was the first English writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize, in 1907. He died in 1936. Geoffrey Patterson began his career in interior design and worked as a set designer with the BBC for 13 years. He was a lecturer in illustration at Suffolk College and has published many books for children. In 1986 he was awarded the Smarties prize for The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg (Andre Deutsche). His books for Frances Lincoln include The Lion and the Gypsy, Jonah and the Whale and Stories from the Bible.