Saturday, February 06, 2010

Are U a Goop?

Yesterday I was up in Marin for most of the day helping a car-less friend run a few errands for his 83-year-old mother. I was duly rewarded with a lovely lunch at the Buckeye Roadhouse.

While there we spent some time and a good deal of money at Book Passage in San Rafael. Peering out at me on a shelf in their rare book section was "The Goop Songbook". The images and tales of misbehaving children with little songs you could learn to train naughty tots really appealed to me. But even book crazed as I am, it's $75 price tag was a bit much for a volume of less than 40 pages.

However, it did prompt me to do more research on just who these Goops were. Amazon has yet to come up with a Kindle version of the book that inspired the song book, but you can find all the little poems and artwork here. And over here, you can even hear them read.
And the full title is so appealing: The Goop Directory of Juvenile Offenders Famous for their Misdeeds and Serving as a Salutary Example for all Virtuous Children. Written by Gellett Burgess of "The Purple Cow" fame they seem to predate one of my other favorite series, Goofus and Gallant from Highlights for Children, a magazine I loved even though it will be forever associated with waiting in doctor offices.

A few years back, I wrote a story in which a book called "A Child's Garden of Dysfunction" introduced a series of characters with severe behavior issues such as Aldo from Umbria who ate 30 creme horns a day. I may be inspired to reprise it.

In case you want more Goops scoop, there is also Goops Unlimited.

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6 Comments:

At 2:32 PM, Blogger Barry said...

I've just come from Bonnie's Original Art Studio blog (http://originalartstudio.blogspot.com/) which has a post titled "Goop".

What are the odds of happening upon two articles on "goop" within a ten minute period?

 
At 3:46 PM, Blogger Ladrón de Basura (a.k.a. Junk Thief) said...

Barry - Wow, that is synchronicity, isn't it? I'm off to Bonnie's now.

 
At 4:46 PM, Blogger Bonnie Zieman, M.Ed. said...

Funny that Barry spotted the two GOOP postings. Your research is interesting. I think there are other modern meanings of the word too, that Paltrow may have been referencing.

I'll be back when I have more time to read more of your blog and find out what else we may have in common!

 
At 5:07 PM, Blogger Ladrón de Basura (a.k.a. Junk Thief) said...

Bonnie - I think Goop is also the name of an industrial strength hand cleaner to get rid of auto grease.

Thanks for dropping in!

 
At 7:54 PM, Blogger jason said...

oh my goodness! I used to read all the Goop books back in elementary school. They helped make me who I am (scary)
We had an ancient library of old children's books then and I was just about the only one reading them

 
At 8:43 PM, Blogger Ladrón de Basura (a.k.a. Junk Thief) said...

Jason - Okay, so does that mean that you did or did not end up becoming a Goop.

 

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