Twinkle and Chubbins, L. Frank Baum
Twinkle and Chubbins, L. Frank Baum
List: $11.98 | Sale: $8.39
Club: $5.99

Twinkle and Chubbins

Author: L. Frank Baum

Narrator: Tavia Gilbert

Unabridged: 3 hr 1 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Ascent Audio

Published: 05/28/2013


Synopsis

Twinkle and Chubbins is a collection of short children's stories written by L. Frank Baum, but published under the pen name Laura Bancroft. The stories included in the collection are: Mr. Woodchuck, Bandit Jim Crow, Prairie-Dog Town, Prince Mud-Turtle, Twinkle's Enchantment, and Sugar-Loaf Mountain. "Mr. Woodchuck" involves Twinkle discovering the cruelty of animal traps, which her father has set in order to catch a woodchuck living on their property. She has a dream involving the woodchuck's family who show her the truth of what her father is doing. "Bandit Jim Crow" tells the story of a baby crow that Twinkle takes in as a a pet that turns out to be a mean and villainous bird. After he is nursed back to health, he begins tormenting all the birds in the area until Policeman Bluejay has to intervene. "Prairie-Dog Town" sees Twinkle and her friend Chubbins go on a magical adventure into the underground village of the prairie dogs, once they have been shrunken down to the same size as the dogs themselves! In "Prince Mud-Turtle," Twinkle discovers a strangely-colored turtle which she brings back home with her. Twinkle then learns that the turtle is actually a prince who has been turned into a turtle by an evil giant and goes on an adventure to restore the turtle-prince to his human form. "Twinkle's Enchantment" involves Twinkle's adventure when she enters into a gulch to pick berries and meets several proverb-based creatures, such as a Rolling Stone That Gathers No Moss and the Birds of One Feather, among others. "Sugar-Loaf Mountain" follows the adventure that Twinkle and Chubbins go on after finding a trap door that leads them to Sugar-Loaf Mountain. Sugar-Loaf mountain, as they discover, is populated by people made of sugar. They meet the king, who takes them around the city to explore and meet the townspeople.
L. Frank Baum (1856- 1919), an American writer, journalist and script writer, is most famously known for his children's books. Baum attended school for theater and later managed an opera house where he wrote plays as well as acted in them. He had many successes and accomplishments, but his greatest success is The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

About L. Frank Baum

L. Frank Baum was born in 1856 in Chittenango, New York, to oil magnate Benjamin Ward Baum and Cynthia (Stanton) Baum, a women's rights activist. He was privately tutored at home and spent two years at Peekskill Military Academy.

In 1873, Baum became a reporter for the New York World. Two years later, he founded the New Era weekly in Pennsylvania. He also worked as a poultry farmer with B. W. Baum and Son and edited the Poultry Record and wrote columns for New York Farmer and Dairyman. In New York, Baum acted under the name George Brooks with May Roberts and the Sterling Comedy in plays that he had written. He owned an opera house in 1882-83 and toured with his own repertory company. In 1882 he married Maud Gage; they had four sons.

In 1883, Baum returned to Syracuse to work in the family oil business. His subsequent endeavor was not successful; his South Dakota general store, Baum's Bazaar, failed, and from 1888 to 1890, he ran the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer. Baum then moved to Chicago and tried various sales positions. In 1897, he founded the National Association of Window Trimmers and edited Show Window from 1897 to 1902.

Baum made his debut as a novelist in 1897 with Mother Goose in Prose, which was based on stories he told to his own children. Its last chapter introduced the farm girl Dorothy. In 1899, Baum published Father Goose: His Book, which quickly became a bestseller. His next work was The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the story of little Dorothy Gale from Kansas, who is transported by a twister to a magical realm. The book was published at Baum's own expense.

The first of the Oz books was made into a musical in 1901. Since its appearance, the story has been filmed many times. Other novels in the series are The Marvelous Land of Oz, Ozma of Oz, Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz , The Road to Oz, The Emerald City of Oz, The Patchwork Girl of Oz, Tik-Tok of Oz, The Scarecrow of Oz, The Lost Princess of Oz, The Tin Woodman of Oz, The Magic of Oz, Glinda of Oz, and The Visitors from Oz, which was adapted from a comic strip by Baum.

During his career, Baum wrote more than sixty books, some of them for adults, including The Last Egyptian. He also gathered material for works aimed at teenagers during his motoring tours across the country and travels in Europe and Egypt.

Born with a congenitally weak heart, Baum was ill through much of his life. He died on May 6, 1919, in Hollywood, where he lived in a house he called Ozcot.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Orion

L. Frank Baum, using the name Laura Bancroft, wrote these six stories in 1905 as separate booklets which were later published together in 1911 as this book. The color illustrations are by Frank Lloyd Wright's younger sister Maginel Wright Enright. In this collection of short stories Twinkle is a girl......more

Goodreads review by Nicifor

Mr. Woodchuck  3☆ Bandit Jim Crow  2☆ Prarie-Dog Town  2☆ Prince Mud-Turtle  3☆ Twinkle's Enchantment  2☆ Sugar-Loaf Mountain  2☆......more

Goodreads review by Harle

It took me forever to find this book on here; I thought it was called The Twinkle Tales. I love this book; surprisingly, it's the only book by Baum I really enjoy. It combines nonsense and fey-lore into something definitely worth reading. If you like the Spiderwick books, Sisters Grimm, 13 Curses, o......more

Goodreads review by Laura

Cute short stories originally published by "Laura Bancroft" (Baum's pseudonym) and illustrated by Maginel Wright Enright (sister of Frank Lloyd and mother of Elizabeth Enright). You can see many of the same influences in his Oz stories, but still worth reading.......more

Goodreads review by Nick

While these stories are very good, it's easy to see why they were not as enduring as the Oz books. First, the confusion of the pseudonym kept Baum fans from knowing about the stories. Second, they are in a very dated style. The children are so passive in some of the stories, they are more travelogue......more