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Sandburg predecessor to Dr. Seuss?

Does anyone else notice a pre-Seuss quality in the stories and some of the pictures in Rootabaga?
Look at the picture of the flongboo from the last chapter. He looks like one of the cat-in-the-hat type creatures.
Theodor Seuss Geisel would have been eighteen years old when the stories came out and might very well have perused them in his formative creative years.

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Sandburg predecessor to Dr. Seuss?

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Ok for Dr. Suess, but, respectfully, he is nowhere near the ballpark of Carl Sandburg and The Rootabaga Stories.

I'm in my 50's and discovered The Rootabaga Stories for the first time on Saturday, January 13th, 2007, when I was reading poetry by Mary Oliver, Robert Frost, and Carl Sandburg and checked out the Wikipedia articles on them -- saw that Sandburg had written children's stories and there I went. That was before the highly esteemed creator of this web site, rootabaga-dot-net, had finished typing in Chapter 7 and Chapter 8. I've been asking friends and colleagues (literary, school teachers, professors, generally well read) and very few had ever heard of The Rootabaga Stories. It is amazing to me that this collection is not more well-known, and in reprints. Since Jan 13th I've ordered over the www, and received by mail, copies of the books, The Rootabaga Stories and The Rootabaga Stories, Part 2. The children in my family, ranginging in ages 4 - 12, like the stories and ask for more.

Many thanks to you.

  • By Song of Joe at 01/27/2007 - 07:08
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Wonderful

Wonderful! I'm glad you discovered them.
Actually the reason I finished them up at this point and started this other site is because of the fact that it got listed in Wikipedia. I told my friends, "Wow, I got wikipedia'ed".
Then, just a couple days ago I was telling some co-workers about Rootabaga and a friend said she had got the Rootabaga Stories for Christmas when she was nine years old -- the same Christmas she got the Little House on the Prairie books. And she is younger than me.
BTW, I'm glad you got copies. I do have links now on the chapter pages to buy reprints from amazon.com.
Thanks again for the comments.
the Ticket Agent

  • By the Ticket Agent at 01/28/2007 - 14:08
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