Why the Crocodile Has a Wide Mouth: and Other Nature Myths

by Florence Holbrook

These fifty-four wonder-filled stories, adapted for curious young minds, describe in simple folktale style how many amazing creatures of the earth were created — and why they look and act as they do — and other natural phenomena.
Learn why the rabbit is timid and the bear has a short tail. Find out how fire was brought to the Indians, and how summer came to the earth. Discover why the sea is salty and evergreen trees never lose their leaves. Meet the children in the moon and the first grasshopper.
Enhanced by 29 illustrations, these beguiling narratives gathered from primitive cultures around the world will delight children, lovers of tall tales, and anyone interested in folklore from faraway lands.

128 pages, Paperback

First published August 11, 2004

About the author

Florence Holbrook was an American writer, educator, suffragist, and peace activist. She taught in the Chicago schools for over fifty years, and was an American delegate to the International Congress of Women in 1915, at the Hague, and in 1919, in Zürich. She was also aboard the Peace Ship with Rosika Schwimmer, and part of John Dewey's commission to study Soviet education in 1929.

Holbrook wrote books for classroom use, often about mythology and folklore subjects. "Holbrook has a theory that if children hear the best of literature from the beginning of their education they will never wish for any other," explained a 1895 newspaper profile.

Round the Year in Myth and Song (1897)
The Hiawatha Primer (1898)
From Many Lands: A Third Reader (1901, with Mary Frances Hall)
Elementary Geography (1901)
The Book of Nature Myths (1902)
Northland Heroes (1909)
Hiawatha Alphabet (1910, illustrated by H. D. Pohl)
Cave, Mound, and Lake Dwellers (1911)
Dramatic Reader for Lower Grades (1911)
"To the Teachers of All the World" (1915, with Kate Blake and Grace deGraff)
Every-day Speller (1917, with M. V. O'Shea and William Adalbert Cook)
"The Teacher" (1924)