Rootabaga Stories. Written by Carl Sandberg. Read by Bobbie Frohman. Length: 3 hrs and 14 mins. Suggested ages: 6 to 8.

Description: 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. 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."

Table of Contents:

Section 1: Three Stories About the Finding of the Zigzag Railroad, the Pigs with Bibs On, the Circus Clown Ovens, the Village of Liver-and-Onions, the Village of Cream Puffs.

Section 1: Chapter 1: How They Broke Away to Go to the Rootabaga Country

Section 1: Chapter 2: How They Bring Back the Village of Cream Puffs When the Wind Blows It Away

Section 1: Chapter 3: How the Five Rusty Rats Helped Find a New Village

Section 2: Five Stories About the Potato Face Blind Man

Section 2: Chapter 1: The Potato Face Blind Man Who Lost the Diamond Rabbit on His Gold Accordion

Section 2: Chapter 2: How the Potato Face Blind Man Enjoyed Himself on a Fine Spring Morning

Section 2: Chapter 3: Poker Face the Baboon and Hot Dog the Tiger

Section 2: Chapter 4: The Toboggan-to-the-Moon Dream of the Potato Face Blind Man

Section 2: Chapter 5: How Gimme the Ax Found Out About the Zigzag Railroad and Who Made It Zigzag

Section 3: Three Stories About the Gold Buckskin Whincher

Section 3: Chapter 1: The Story of Blixie Bimber and the Power of the Gold Buckskin Whincher

Section 3: Chapter 2: The Story of Jason Squiff and Why He Had a Popcorn Hat, Popcorn Mittens and Popcorn Shoes

Section 3: Chapter 3: The Story of Rags Habakuk, the Two Blue Rats, and the Circus Man Who Came with Spot Cash Money

Section 4: Four Stories About the Deep Doom of Dark Doorways

Section 4: Chapter 1: The Wedding Procession of the Rag Doll and the Broom Handle and Who Was in It

Section 4: Chapter 2: How the Hat Ashes Shovel Helped Snoo Foo

Section 4: Chapter 3: Three Boys With Jugs of Molasses and Secret Ambitions

Section 4: Chapter 4: How Bimbo the Snip's Thumb Stuck to His Nose When the Wind Changed

Section 5: Three Stories About Three Ways the Wind Went Winding

Section 5: Chapter 1: The Two Skyscrapers Who Decided to Have a Child

Section 5: Chapter 2: The Dollar Watch and the Five Jack Rabbits

Section 5: Chapter 3: The Wooden Indian and the Shaghorn Buffalo

Section 6: Four Stories About Dear, Dear Eyes

Section 6: Chapter 1: The White Horse Girl and the Blue Wind Boy

Section 6: Chapter 2: What Six Girls with Balloons Told the Gray Man on Horseback

Section 6: Chapter 3: How Henry Hagglyhoagly Played the Guitar with His Mittens On

Section 6: Chapter 4: Never Kick a Slipper at the Moon

Section 7: One Story, "Only the Fire-Born Understand Blue"

Section 7: Chapter 1: Sand Flat Shadows

Section 8: Two Stories About Corn Fairies, Blue Foxes, Flongboos and Happenings That Happened in the United States and Canada

Section 8: Chapter 1: How to Tell Corn Fairies If You See 'Em

Section 8: Chapter 2: How the Animals Lost Their Tails and Got Them Back Traveling From Philadelphia to Medicine Hat