Fables, Foibles, and Foobles

Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) is best known for his poetry (Chicago Poems, Smoke and Steel, and Good Morning, America), his books for children, including Rootabaga Country and Potato Face, and his six-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln. The Pulitzer Prize-winning Illinois author devoted his life to writing, lecturing, reading from his own works, and collecting and singing folk songs.  Sandburg often incorporated proverbs, riddles, aphorisms, and vernacular wisdom in lectures, poetry, children’s stories, and in his novel Remembrance Rock. Believing that silliness and fun helped preserve sanity and balance, he put together a collection of fanciful anecdotes - alive with alliteration - for his own amusement. Now, more than twenty years after his death, the publication of Fables, Foibles, and Foobles truly reveals, for perhaps the first time, the playful spirit of this great American poet.  George Hendrick has compiled the best of these never-before-published nonsensical pieces, which include Flies, Fleas, Flinyons, Flicks, Flooches, Flacks, Flatches, and assorted F-friends deep in dialogue about books and reading; the fascinating worlds of the curious hoomadooms, hongdorshes, and onkadonks; fables to rival Thurber; jokes about every conceivable type of nut; and cameo appearances by Hank the Honk and Flitty the Wid, among others. Robert Harvey’s whimsical drawings, scattered throughout the book, illuminate this charming cast of characters.