KidLit Forum

I think this story is uncommonly interesting, first of all, the names are more than strange for a fairy tale, I also felt that the family unity is not so much promoted here (where is the mother of the children?!) this is the kind of story that requires a special theatrical reading that can be delightful for little children, for example the train travel: "And it ran on and on chick chick-a-chick chick-a-chick chick-a-chick..." and "the open-and-shut of the steam hog had to go pfisty-pfoost, pfisty-pfoost"; because there are lots of repetitive and enumeration sequences, as the colors of the balloons in "The country of the balloon pickers" where the narrator departed from a innocent enumeration of colors to a mash: "Red, blue, yellow balloons, white, purple and orange balloons- peach, watermelon and potato balloons- rye loaf and wheat loaf balloons- link sausage and pork chop balloons- they floated and filled the sky". In this strange lands the logic of the things is infallible: "Baby pickers on baby stilts were picking baby balloons". I like the most the originality of character's names, the colorful vocabulary, the creativity and the simple and free logic that characterize children.

Hi, Anna! I've also read Carl Sandburg's Rootabaga stories and some of them are about the Potato Face Blind Man, an old minstrel of the Village of Liver-and-Onions, who used to play an accordion on the Main Street near the Post Office. You are right saying that the names are very unusual and humorous at the same time for ex. Wing Tip the Spick, Please Gimme, Ax Me No Questions, Gimme the Ax, Any IceToday, Poker Face the Baboon, White Gold Boys, Blue Silver Girls and so on. I even heard a version of the stories told by an English woman, Betsie Bush (found it on the net), interesting for children to listen to (my son laughed a lot)! So, using all the unusual names of characters and towns, I guess the author wanted to emphasize his unique way of telling stories being fed up with the European ones with queens, kings, knights and princes and princesses. He wanted something else for his kids, some stories populated with animals, trains, corn fairies and other interesting characters that make you laugh and enjoy reading! I can hardly wait reading about the differeces made by Disney in the history of fairytales! I wish you a very Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year! See you...

I see this fairytale as a funny story, first of all because of the names, repetitions and actions that characters….but it is not a traditional story that we are used to read (with fairies, queens, kings etc). It is interesting the freedom that is given to children “he decided to have his children name themselves”.
In my opinion the story tries to show us the Utopic America, where “nobody gets out of the way of nobody else. They either go over or under”, the country where even babies were picking balloons, pigs had bibs etc.
My favorite quotation of the story was the part with the sign “I am blind too” and as the Potato Face Blind Man explains:

"some of the people who pass by here going into the postoffice and coming out, they have eyes – but they see nothing with their eyes. They look where they are going and they get where they wish to get, but they forget why they came and they do not know how to come away. They are my blind brothers”

It describes the way people act in nowadays, they only look but they do not see, they are too busy to enjoy things they wished for.
Ps. Do you think that Potato Face Blind Man was really blind?

The Rootabaga Stories seems to be very unusual stories. This is because of the style of the writing, with all that mini stories which, after you read, you ask yourself: so what? What happened here? Nothing happened?! This stories seems not to be finished, is like you have to think about a final for them.

Even if this happened to me, I like reading this stories because are interesting, and very creative, is not like an old story with castles and princes, it is more beautiful and full of imagination.
These stories gave you a vision perspective and let you imagine the beautiful picture of the village of Liver-and –Union and the Village of Cream Puffs

I like the first one, and what creative is, how they have this strange name: Ax me no question or others. I like also the one with the girl which have a meeting with the three uncles of her and they put many questions and look deep into her eyes.
This stories is also with so many word games and that I like the most.