Why does the giraffe have spotty skin? Why do melons taste just so? An insatiably curious young elephant can't stop asking questions, until one in particular gets him into worse trouble than he could have ever imagined. In “The Elephant’s Child” and two other fanciful fables, Rudyard Kipling offers whimsical explanations for the strange lives and looks of the animals he encountered as a child in India—the long-trunked elephant, the saggy-skinned rhinoceros, and the half-wild house cat.