Rootabaga pigeons

"Rootabaga Pigeons" by Carl Sandburg is a whimsical collection of children's stories written in the early 20th century. The narrative features charming characters like the Potato Face Blind Man and various animals, including six pigeons and flamboyant figures like Hatrack the Horse. Sandburg's prose is imaginative and playful, embodying a sense of wonder that invites readers into the fantastical world of Rootabaga, where the ordinary becomes extraordinary. The opening of the collection introduces readers to the Potato Face Blind Man who shares fantastical stories with a little girl named Blixie Bimber. The first tale features a green rat with rheumatism that shares experiences about a skyscraper being constructed to connect to the moon, and the struggles of workers trying to stop the moon from moving. In another vignette, we see Slipfoot, a character whose misadventures and slip-ups lead to humorous situations, showing a whimsical take on failure and persistence. The stories are rich with imaginative details, capturing the essence of childhood curiosity and the power of storytelling. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Carl August Sandburg was an American poet, biographer, journalist, and editor. He won three Pulitzer Prizes: two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln. During his lifetime, Sandburg was widely regarded as "a major figure in contemporary literature", especially for volumes of his collected verse, including Chicago Poems (1916), Cornhuskers (1918), and Smoke and Steel (1920). He enjoyed "unrivaled appeal as a poet in his day, perhaps because the breadth of his experiences connected him with so many strands of American life". When he died in 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson observed that "Carl Sandburg was more than the voice of America, more than the poet of its strength and genius. He was America."