Rootabaga Stories

He felt that the European stories involving royalty and knights were inappropriate, and so set his stories in a fictionalized American Midwest called "the Rootabaga country" with fairy-tale concepts such as corn fairies mixed with farms, trains, sidewalks, and skyscrapers.

[3] A large number of the stories are told by the Potato Face Blind Man, an old minstrel of the Village of Liver-and-Onions who hangs out in front of the local post office.

His impossibly acquired firsthand knowledge of the stories adds to the book's narrative feel and fantastical nature.

He seems to love some of the precious things that are cheap, such as stars, the wind, pleasant words, time to be lazy, and fools having personality and distinction.

A little known volume of Rootabaga stories called Potato Face was published in 1930 by Harcourt, Brace and Company.