Rootabaga Stories

by Carl Sandburg

"Rootabaga Stories" by Carl Sandburg is a children's book published in 1922. Originally created for Sandburg's own daughters, these whimsical and sometimes melancholy tales reimagine fairy tales for American childhood. Set in the fictionalized "Rootabaga country" of the Midwest, the stories blend fantastical elements like corn fairies with everyday features of American life—farms, trains, sidewalks, and skyscrapers. Many tales are narrated by the Potato Face Blind Man, a mysterious storyteller whose impossible firsthand knowledge adds to the book's enchanting, dreamlike quality.