SOLVED. Old Children's book with moral lessons [s]

[Wyatt]

I suppose mild spoilers? 'Tis a children's book though.

Trying to find the name and possibly author of an old children's book I used to read. Can only remember that
Anthropomorphic animal characters were used and that one story was of a mongoose which was afraid of snakes. The other story I can remember was of a leopard who was always trying to wash off her spots until someone told her that they made her beautiful and hence forth she told her cubs to never try and change their spots.

All I can remember.

Thanks for any help!

[Kathy]

Wyatt, could you be misremembering Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories? These tell "How the Elephant Got His Trunk," "How the Leopard Got Its Spots," and the like. His famous "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi," about a brave (not a fearful) snake-fighting mongoose was from the collection The Second Jungle Book. (Here's a plain text version of "Rikki" to remind you: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mongoose/rtt.html.)

[Wyatt]

I was thinking that when I started searching originally but no. My family remembers reading this book as well so I know it isn't just my memory playing tricks.

Thanks for your reply though. I will keep searching at home - we may still have it.

[SparksofEmber]

Sounds like it could be the Serendipity series to me, though I don't remember any books have those two specific plots...

[Wyatt]

Solved.

Name of the book is The Maladjusted Jungle. Poems by Hereward Allix, Illustrations by Graham Bardell. Oxford University Press 1991

[SparksofEmber]

The Maladjusted Jungle: Poems for the link. Wyatt, can you move the topic to the Solved folder and link the book while you are at it?