The Crab That Played with the Sea

Poetic justice for a disobedient Crab in Sheila Graber’s delightful animation of Kipling’s fanciful origin story for children.

One of Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories, published in 1902, this richly inventive children’s fable explains the origin of the ebb and flow of tides and how the rebellious Crab got its claws. Sheila Graber’s colourful hand-painted animation takes us to a place of myth: the Time of the Very Beginnings, when the Eldest Magician calls on the world’s beasts to come out and play themselves in the world.

As a gifted amateur, Sheila Graber received commissions from the Tate Gallery, London, Tyne Tees TV and the BBC. The animations of Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories were commissioned by Nicole Jouve of Interama, the French agent for The Magic Roundabout. They were first broadcast on French TV in 1983 and went on to be shown in 20 other countries.