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.