Rootabaga Stories


Rootabaga Stories 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", and those nicknames occur in some of his Rootabaga stories.

Development

Rootabaga stories were born of Sandburg's desire to inspire intellectual freedom and curiosity within children's lives. Sandburg creates a world where children's hearts and minds can and do soar freely. Rootabaga is inspired by the magic of the American Midwest.
Rootabaga country comes alive with friends such as Corn Fairies, Broom Can Handle It, Hot Dog the Tiger, and the Wind Blue Boy. In Rootabaga “the first words they speak as soon as they learn to make words shall be their names,” he said. “They shall name themselves.” That's how things go in Rootabaga, Axe me no questions, for Please Gimme don't knows-- here the windows are either open or shut, either upstairs or downstairs, just keep your eyes open and keep breathing, believing, and reading.
They explore farms, trains, sidewalks, and skyscrapers- embrace the unknown and create the impossible.
Potato Face Blind Man, an old minstrel of the Village of Liver-and-Onions, hangs out in front of the local post office telling stories and is the narrative guide in Rootabaga Country.
In the Preface of the little-known Potato Face, Sandburg writes,
"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."

Sequels

Rootabaga Stories was followed by a sequel, Rootabaga Pigeons, published in 1923. A little known volume of Rootabaga stories called Potato Face was published in 1930 by Harcourt, Brace and Company. It was not illustrated. A collection of previously unpublished stories was published as More Rootabagas in 1993 with illustrations by Paul O. Zelinsky.

Recordings