Frank baum biography

The following was origanally published in the Philadelphia North American (3 October 1904). Reprinted in The Baum Bugle, Spring 1985.

WOGGLEBUG’S CREATOR TELLS OF INSPIRATION

    "I was out on a California beach," said L.

Frank Baum. "There was a pretty little girl I was very much interested in beside me. She was making sand pies and enjoying herself immensely, when suddenly she saw one of those little sand crabs, fiddler crabs I suppose they are.

    ‘Oh, what is it?’ she said.

    ‘A wogglebug,’ I said, unthinkingly, using the first term that popped into my head.

    ‘The child was delighted and ran to her parents shouting: ‘Oh, see what I’ve got!

It’s a wogglebug. Mr. Baum says it’s a wogglebug.’

    "The name was so catchy that the same evening my wife told me I should put the Wogglebug in ‘The Marvelou