A Rocket in my Pocket by Carl Withers
Author: Carl Withers
Illustrator: Susanna Sula
Publisher: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1948
Page Count: 214
Hardcover
Holt Library Edition
Withers was one of those jack-of-all-trades writers. He specialized in Cuba for a time and researched psychological stress in undergraduates at another moment. He taught at the university level. He was also an editor for Grolier and in this capacity edited the 10-volume Lands and Peoples reference set. At some point he picked up an interest in anthropology and applied that to American folklore. He collected from diverse sources the 400 songs, rhymes ditties etc. that comprise A Rocket in My Pocket. It doesn’t seem that he did original field work but there was probably enough resource material in magazines, old children’s books etc.
Many of the rhymes had passed out of use by the time he collated them, but they speak to the language, interests, and even the prejudices of earlier generations. In this same era of the 30’s and 40’s Carl Sandburg among others was collecting Americana songs. Dialect novels to record disappearing or relict speech had begun in the late 1800s and the DARE project on Regional American English was a few years from starting. But one can sense a nostalgia for older speech and a worry about losing touch with regional and national roots. The book is considered a minor classic and has been reprinted by Scholastic Books.
Condition: Dust jacket is good, with some fraying and a piece of masking tape on the lower spine. The book itself is Good to Very Good. The price is clipped. There is no indication that it is ex-libris.
Author: Carl Withers
Illustrator: Susanna Sula
Publisher: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1948
Page Count: 214
Hardcover
Holt Library Edition
Withers was one of those jack-of-all-trades writers. He specialized in Cuba for a time and researched psychological stress in undergraduates at another moment. He taught at the university level. He was also an editor for Grolier and in this capacity edited the 10-volume Lands and Peoples reference set. At some point he picked up an interest in anthropology and applied that to American folklore. He collected from diverse sources the 400 songs, rhymes ditties etc. that comprise A Rocket in My Pocket. It doesn’t seem that he did original field work but there was probably enough resource material in magazines, old children’s books etc.
Many of the rhymes had passed out of use by the time he collated them, but they speak to the language, interests, and even the prejudices of earlier generations. In this same era of the 30’s and 40’s Carl Sandburg among others was collecting Americana songs. Dialect novels to record disappearing or relict speech had begun in the late 1800s and the DARE project on Regional American English was a few years from starting. But one can sense a nostalgia for older speech and a worry about losing touch with regional and national roots. The book is considered a minor classic and has been reprinted by Scholastic Books.
Condition: Dust jacket is good, with some fraying and a piece of masking tape on the lower spine. The book itself is Good to Very Good. The price is clipped. There is no indication that it is ex-libris.
Author: Carl Withers
Illustrator: Susanna Sula
Publisher: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1948
Page Count: 214
Hardcover
Holt Library Edition
Withers was one of those jack-of-all-trades writers. He specialized in Cuba for a time and researched psychological stress in undergraduates at another moment. He taught at the university level. He was also an editor for Grolier and in this capacity edited the 10-volume Lands and Peoples reference set. At some point he picked up an interest in anthropology and applied that to American folklore. He collected from diverse sources the 400 songs, rhymes ditties etc. that comprise A Rocket in My Pocket. It doesn’t seem that he did original field work but there was probably enough resource material in magazines, old children’s books etc.
Many of the rhymes had passed out of use by the time he collated them, but they speak to the language, interests, and even the prejudices of earlier generations. In this same era of the 30’s and 40’s Carl Sandburg among others was collecting Americana songs. Dialect novels to record disappearing or relict speech had begun in the late 1800s and the DARE project on Regional American English was a few years from starting. But one can sense a nostalgia for older speech and a worry about losing touch with regional and national roots. The book is considered a minor classic and has been reprinted by Scholastic Books.
Condition: Dust jacket is good, with some fraying and a piece of masking tape on the lower spine. The book itself is Good to Very Good. The price is clipped. There is no indication that it is ex-libris.