Other editions of book Rootabaga Stories

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American author and poet Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), best known for the poetry that attributed to two of his three Pulitzer Prizes, also wrote histories, biographies, novels, and children's stories. Born in Illinois, Sandburg spent most of his life in the Midwest before moving to North Carolina in 1945, where he lived till his death. In the early 1920s Sandburg began writing children's stories for his three daughters, beginning with his "Rootabaga Stories", one of three collections of stories set in the small towns and farms of the American Midwest. The stories were widely read and enjoyed for their unique nonsensical style and distinctly American feeling. Sandburg wanted to create something different than the traditional European fairy tales, explaining that he was "tired of princes and princesses and I sought the American equivalent of elves and gnomes." He certainly succeeded with "Rootabaga Stories". The beautifully nonsensical writing, illogical grammar, and fantastical settings set the stage for such memorable characters as the Potato Face Blind Man, Hatrack the Horse, and Red Slippers.

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Welcome to Rootabaga Country--where the railroad tracks go from straight to zigzag, where the pigs wear bibs, and where the Village of Cream Puffs floats in the wind. You'll meet baby balloon pickers, flummywisters, corn fairies, and blue foxes--and if you're not careful, you may never find your way back home! These beautiful new editions retain the original illustrations by Maud and Miska Petersham, and feature gorgeous new jackets by acclaimed illustrator Kurt Cyrus. Carl Sandburg's irrepressible, zany, and completely original Rootabaga Stories and More Rootabaga Stories will stand alone on children's bookshelves--when they aren't in children's hands.

Gimme the Ax decided to let his children name themselves. "The first words they speak as soon as they learn to make words shall be their names," he said. "They shall name themselves." When the first boy came to the house of Gimme the Ax, he was named Please Gimme. When the first girl came she was named Ax Me No Questions. And both of the children had the shadows of valleys by night in their eyes and the lights of early morning, when the sun is coming up, on their foreheads. And the hair on top of their heads was a dark wild grass. And they loved to turn the doorknobs, open the doors, and run out to have the wind comb their hair and touch their eyes and put its six soft fingers on their foreheads.

Rootabaga Stories (1922) is a children's book of interrelated short stories by Carl Sandburg. The whimsical, sometimes melancholy stories, which often use nonsense language, were originally created for his own daughters. Sandburg had three daughters, Margaret, Janet and Helga, whom he nicknamed "Spink", "Skabootch" and "Swipes" -those nicknames occur in some of his Rootabaga stories. The "Rootabaga" stories were born of Sandburg's desire for "American fairy tales" to match American childhood. He felt that the European stories involving royalty and knights were inappropriate, and so set his stories in a fictionalized American Midwest called "the Rootabaga country" filled with farms, trains, and corn fairies. Excerpt from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootabaga_Stories Hint: You can preview this book by clicking on "Preview" which is located under the cover of this book.

A magical gift with ……There is in (his humor) the appeal of sound as well as of action. It is a humor so distinctive, so individual, that only a great poet could have made it universal…..All of Sandburg’s words are significant. His words have not only meaning, they have a definite relation to one another. They dance a measure in THE WEDDING PROCESSION OF THE RAG DOLL AND THE BROOM HANDLE. They sing a melody in that story of his that belongs with pure poetry rather than with humor – THE WHITE HORSE GIRL AND THE BLUE WIND BOY. His stories are joyous rather than humorous. Indeed, they are both joyous and humorous. They have the natural tempo’ of childhood. This is an omnibus volume including all the stories in ROOTABAGA STORIES and ROOTABAGA PIGEONS. The original illustrations by the Petershams are also included.

In the village of Liver-and-Onions, there was a Potato Face Blind Man who used to play an accordion on the corner near the post office. The sometime narrator of these tales, he transports readers and listeners to Rootabaga Country, where the railroad tracks go from straight to zigzag, the pigs wear bibs, and the Village of Cream Puffs floats in the wind, looking like a little hat that you could wear on the end of your thumb. Carl Sandburg, the beloved folk chronicler and three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, invented these stories for his own daughters. Populated by corn fairies, circus performers, and such memorable characters as Poker Face the Baboon, Hot Dog the Tiger, and Gimme the Ax, Rootabaga Country is built with the homespun poetry of the American frontier. The stories’ inspired nonsense - loaded with rhythm, humor, and tongue-twisting names - fires the imagination and pulls at the heartstrings.