Rootabaga Stories
'Rootabaga Stories' Summary
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" with fairy-tale concepts such as corn fairies mixed with farms, trains, sidewalks, and skyscrapers.
A large number of the stories are told by the Potato Face Blind Man, an old minstrel of the Village of Liver-and-Onions who hangs out in front of the local post office. His impossibly acquired firsthand knowledge of the stories adds to the book's narrative feel and fantastical nature. In the Preface of the little-known Potato Face, Sandburg wrote, "it is in Rootabaga Country, and in the biggest village of that country, the Potato Face Blind Man sits with his accordion on the corner nearest the post office. There he sits with his eyes never looking out and always searching in. And sometimes he finds in himself the whole human procession."
Sandburg went on about the storyteller, "In fact, he sometimes indicates that when he needs an animal or fool not yet seen or heard of, he can make it for himself and give it a character so it is real to him, and when he talks about it and tells its story, it is like telling about one of his own children. He seems to love some of the precious things that are cheap, such as stars, the wind, pleasant words, time to be lazy, and fools having personality and distinction. He knows, it seems, that young people are young no matter how many years they live; that there are children born old and brought up to be full of fear; that a young heart keeps young by a certain measure of fooling as the years go by; that men and women old in years sometimes keep a fresh child heart and, to the last, salute the dawn and the morning with a mixture of reverence and laughter."
Book Details
Language
EnglishOriginal Language
EnglishPublished In
1922Author
Carl Sandburg
United States
Carl August Sandburg was an American poet, biographer, journalist, and editor. He won three Pulitzer Prizes: two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln. During his lifetime, Sandb...
More on Carl SandburgDownload eBooks
Listen/Download Audiobook
- Select Speed
Related books
Anne of Avonlea by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Anne of Avonlea was published in 1909, immediately after the first book. It contains several of the characters present in the previous book, so reader...
Tales of the Jazz Age by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Tales of the Jazz Age is a collection of eleven short stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Divided into three separate parts, according to subject matter,...
All About Johnnie Jones by Carolyn Verhoeff
Unravel the enigmatic life of Johnnie Jones in this gripping tale by Carolyn Verhoeff. "All About Johnnie Jones" starts with a bang as we delve into t...
The Clicking of Cuthbert by P. G. Wodehouse
The Clicking of Cuthbert is a collection of ten short stories by P. G. Wodehouse, all with a golfing theme. It was first published in the United Kingd...
Nine Unlikely Tales for Children by Edith Nesbit
Nine original and, yes, unlikely fairy-tales, which include stories of the arithmetic fairy, the king who became a charming villa-residence and the dr...
The Lady With the Dog and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov
"The Lady with the Dog" is a short story by Anton Chekhov. First published in 1899, it describes an adulterous affair between an unhappily married Mos...
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle
A modern day legend, Robin Hood is an archetypal hero of the common people who goes to great lengths to famously take from the rich and give to the po...
The Algonquin Legends of New England by Charles G. Leland
This work, then, contains a collection of the myths, legends, and folk-lore of the principal Wabanaki, or Northeastern Algonquin, Indians; that is to...
Rain by W. Somerset Maugham
"Rain" is a short story by the British writer W. Somerset Maugham. It was originally published as "Miss Thompson" in the April 1921 issue of the Ameri...
Dorothy Dale – A Girl of Today by Margaret Penrose
Dorothy Dale is the daughter of an old Civil War veteran who is running a weekly newspaper in a small Eastern town. Her sunny disposition, her fun-lov...
Reviews for Rootabaga Stories
No reviews posted or approved, yet...