July’s read is Carl Sandburg’s Rootabaga Stories. Published in 1922, Rootabaga Stories is a children’s book of interrelated short stories. The whimsical, sometimes melancholy stories, which often use nonsense language, were originally created for Sandburg’s daughters. The stories were born of Sandburg’s desire for “American fairy tales” to match American childhood. 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” filled with farms, trains, and corn fairies. 

Book club members may be able to order this book at a 20% discount through Black Mountain bookstore Sassafras on Sutton. Please e-mail volunteer@swannanoavalleymuseum.org or call 828/669-9566 to receive the information to get your discount.