Indeed, was even the cradle only a goochie-goochie cove of good-fairy cobwebs entirely devoid of hobgoblin shadows; or was it not also the primordial place of boo-boo badness and doo-doo-in-diapers as well?
Today’s Cautionary Tale addresses a problem that affects adults as well as children. Hoffman writes of it in the mid-nineteenth century, and anyone who has recently tried to navigate a city sidewalk will relate.
Here’s to everyone of us whose mother ever said, “Watch where you’re going!”
Today’s Cautionary Tale concerns a problem that all loving parents will face sooner than later. Hoffman writes of it in the mid-nineteenth century, and young mothers of my acquaintance tell me nothing much has changed.
I offer my best wishes to Celia the Cry-Baby and anyone who can relate.
Today I am submitting for inspection a little piece called Conrad and the Tailor, the first in a collection of “Cautionary Tales.” I was inspired by my memories of a slender volume of poems given me by my grandmother when I was three years old. Slovenly Peter first appeared in Germany as Der Struwwelpeter, an 1845 children’s book by Heinrich Hoffman.
Hoffman was, among other things, the doctor at a lunatic asylum in Frankfurt, where he considered himself to be “the sunshine in the life of his miserable patients.” I will let my readers judge the level of his success.
Have I mentioned that my family specialized in dark humor?
