Animal Fairy Tales facts for kids
First edition
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| Author | L. Frank Baum |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Dick Martin |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Fantasy |
| Publisher | International Wizard of Oz Club and Opium Books |
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Publication date
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1969 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 151 pp. |
| ISBN | 0-929605-04-7 |
| OCLC | 23200754 |
Animal Fairy Tales is a collection of short stories by L. Frank Baum. He is famous for creating the magical Land of Oz series of children's books. These stories are about animals, much like Aesop's Fables or Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. They first appeared in a magazine in 1905.
For many years, this collection was a "lost" book by Baum. This means people could not find or read it easily. It was rediscovered when the International Wizard of Oz Club published all the stories together in one book in 1969.
About the Stories
The nine stories in Animal Fairy Tales were first printed in a popular magazine called The Delineator. This was a women's magazine that also had sections for children. The stories appeared every month from January to September in 1905.
These tales were part of a special section called "Stories and Pastimes for Children." Most of the pictures for the stories were drawn by Charles Livingston Bull. Before this, The Delineator had also published Baum's story "A Kidnapped Santa Claus" in December 1904.
Why the Book Was "Lost"
L. Frank Baum wanted these stories to be published as a book. In 1918, his health was not good. He worked to get some books ready for publishing in case he passed away. He prepared three manuscripts so his publisher, Reilly & Britton, could release a new Baum book each year until 1921.
Two of these books were the last ones in his Oz series. These were The Magic of Oz (published in 1919) and Glinda of Oz (published in 1920). The third book he prepared was Animal Fairy Tales. No one knows for sure why Reilly & Britton never published this book at the time.
What's Inside
The collection has ten parts, including an introduction and nine animal stories:
- "Prologue" (published January 1905)
- "The Story of Jaglon" (January 1905)
- "The Stuffed Alligator" (February 1905)
- "The Discontented Gopher" (March 1905)
- "The Forest Oracle" (April 1905)
- "The Enchanted Buffalo" (May 1905)
- "The Pea-Green Poodle" (June 1905)
- "The Jolly Giraffe of Jomb" (July 1905)
- "The Troubles of Pop Wombat" (August 1905)
- "The Transformation of Bayal the Porcupine" (September 1905)
The story "The Enchanted Buffalo" is the one most often found in other story collections. Baum likely wrote these stories in 1903 and 1904. They are similar to other animal tales he wrote around that time. Some of his other animal stories appeared in books like American Fairy Tales (1901) and The Twinkle Tales (1906).
Baum's Unique Style
Baum's animal tales show his very imaginative writing style. He was interested in theosophy, which is a set of beliefs about God and the world. This interest influenced his stories. His tales are different from those by writers like Albert Bigelow Paine, who wrote more realistic animal stories.
For example, in "The Story of Jaglon," a baby tiger who has no parents is raised by "tiger fairies." In 1953, another Oz author named Jack Snow wrote a longer version of this story. It was called Jaglon and the Tiger Fairies and had pictures by Dale Ulrey. This was meant to be the first of many expanded stories, but the others were never published.
Baum also wrote another story for this collection called "The Tiger's Eye." This story is darker and talks about evil magic affecting animals and people. It was not printed until 1962. A newer edition of Animal Fairy Tales was released in 1992. This version included the original pictures by Charles Bull.
