Rootabaga Country

Which is your favorite of the Rootabaga Stories and why?
Go here to send your answer. Your Ticket Agent will post it for you here.

• Chab Guthrie says:
  The Two Skyscrapers Who Decided to Have a Child.
  "This has been my favorite Rootabaga Story since I first read it almost 30 years ago. (I was 30 or just about then.) It is poetic, funny, touching, and sublimely American.
  I used to inaugurate new coffeehouse seasons by reading it. The skyscrapers never failed to elicit a satisfactory response from the audience."
  Chab's very close seconds: How to Tell Corn Fairies... How They Broke Away... White Horse Girl & Blud Wind Boy...
• Kate says:
  The Wedding Procession of the Rag Doll and the Broom Handle. This is a great story because all the marchers are funny and we can identify with at least one group.

I learned from John Hayes of Five and Dime Jazz about a Rootabaga Play last year in McCall, Idaho.

John said:

The play was produced in December 2006 by the McCall-Donnelly High School Drama Troupe. It had a three-day (Thurs-Sat) run at a local theater called the Alpine Playhouse in McCall, Idaho. Besides being the site of winter & spring school plays, the Alpine puts on a Winter Carnival & summer play, & also hosts the Seven Devils Playwrights Conference in June each year. There are also some music shows & film screenings at the Alpine.

The play was adapted from the Rootabage Stories by Judy Anderson, who's the McCall-Donnelly drama teacher; Judy also directed the play. Besides writing her own plays, Judy has done a number of adaptations-- right now she's working on an adaptation of Tove Jansson's "Moomipappa at Sea"-- we've worked a lot with Judy, & will be doing music for the Moominpappa play as well.

When I was a child no more than four, somebody, perhaps my Grand-mother, or my cousin, read me a good book. The illustrations were magical, and although they were not brightly coloured pictures, the stark black line illustrations had a balance and a power. I could never remember the title of this good book, or who wrote it, yet it had a power. There was something about Medicine Hat and the animals losing their tails and getting them back, an image of a wizard sitting on a mountain top, and a man-faced cat reading a newspaper with the light bulb on the end of his tail. As time went on and the memories of early childhood were shuffled to more remote positions, I couldn’t even remember If the good book and these strange images were real or imagined; whether someone had actually read it to me, or if it was a perpetual figment of my dreams.

Welcome to the Rootabaga Community Startup Page. It's for readers and lovers of the Rootabaga Stories and Carl Sandburg.

I am posting some little essays about 'em and asking for input, written or graphic, from the "Rootabaga Community" at large. I'm also getting this site tweaked as I go along. You can join up and give your views, or, if you don't feel like joining you can just tell us which one is your favorite Rootabaga Story.

And consider the question Gimme the Ax was asked: "Do you wish a ticket to go away and come back or do you wish a ticket to go away and never come back?"

Till then, I remain your sleepy-eyed Ticket Agent

P.S. Here's the online book.

P.P.S. Here's more stuff.