The just-so story, as perfected by Rudyard Kipling, is a reverse-engineering narrative. You begin with a phenomenon—an animal with tough scaly skin, or with spots, or with a long prehensile trunk—and you work your way backwards in time until you hit upon a possible explanation for its origin. In the context of stories for children, of course, the explanation is not meant to be likely or even plausible but rather as imaginative and delightful as possible while still qualifying as a kind of "explanation."
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