J is for Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling – Kipling has been a childhood favorite and a featured author on my blog a couple of times. You can read the previous times he made an appearance here, here and here. Kipling first started telling these stories to his daughter Josephine and later published the stories together titled ‘Just So Stories’. From wikipedia:  These had to be told “just so” (exactly in the words she was used to) or she would complain.

You can read the book in many online versions (one illustrated by Kipling here, and another one with beautiful color illustrations by others here)

For Within Books, I bring to you, dear reader (or Best Beloved, as Kipling says), one poem selected from the many that Kipling hid out in the open like sparkling gems in his stories.

This one is from ‘The Elephant’s Child‘

I Keep six honest serving-men:
(They taught me all I knew)
Their names are What and Where and When
And How and Why and Who.
I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.

I let them rest from nine till five.
For I am busy then,
As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,
For they are hungry men:
But different folk have different views:
I know a person small–
She keeps ten million serving-men,
Who get no rest at all!
She sends ’em abroad on her own affairs,
From the second she opens her eyes–
One million Hows, two million Wheres,
And seven million Whys!

K is for Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson, and from within this book, a historical fact or two for you..

The book is set around real events, including the “Appin murder” (and some believe Stevenson, a voracious reader of history himself, was inspired by the  James Annesley case of over a century ago to write Kidnapped (among other stories that inspired him in the writing of this book).

Many of the characters are real people, including one of the main characters, Alan Breck Stewart.

L is for Antoine De Saint-Exupery’s ‘The Little Prince‘ and here are some quotable quotes from within this book.

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

It is such a mysterious place, the land of tears.

But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world.

It is much more difficult to judge oneself than to judge others. If you succeed in judging yourself rightly, then you are indeed a man of true wisdom.

I will make you a present of a secret.

I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies.

Signing off on Days 11, 12, and 13/letters J, K, and L on #AtoZChallenge and #UltimateBlogChallenge for April 2018.

My #atozchallenge and #UBCPosts:

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