The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
by L. Frank Baum
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recommends it for:
Children, Teens
On a small Kansas farm, Dorothy Gale lives with her Uncle Henry and Aunt Em. As a tornado rips through the town in which they live, Uncle Henry and Aunt Em manage to retreat to the storm cellar for safety. Unfortunately, Dorothy doesn’t make it in time and the house, along with Dorothy and her dog Toto are whisked away into an unfamiliar place. The home lands in a beautiful setting called “The Land of Munchkins.” To Dorothy’s surprise, the house crushed the so called “Wicked Witc...more
On a small Kansas farm, Dorothy Gale lives with her Uncle Henry and Aunt Em. As a tornado rips through the town in which they live, Uncle Henry and Aunt Em manage to retreat to the storm cellar for safety. Unfortunately, Dorothy doesn’t make it in time and the house, along with Dorothy and her dog Toto are whisked away into an unfamiliar place. The home lands in a beautiful setting called “The Land of Munchkins.” To Dorothy’s surprise, the house crushed the so called “Wicked Witc...more
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Read in June, 2008
Reading this gave me the utmost respect for the MGM screenwriters who adapted the tale for the big screen. Theirs is actually a much better story than Baum's. Baum's story, classic though it may be, is too terribly simple and carries no tension. The entire telling is rather ho-hum and contains none of the brilliant writing that worked its way into our pop culture. "I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too!"; "Not nobody not no how!"; "There's no place like h...more
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I had not only watched the well known Wizard of Oz movie with Judy Garland first, but I'd also read the Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, as well as seen the Broadway musical of Wicked, before getting a chance to read this classic. Well, that's not entirely true, when I was young, my grandfather had started to read the book to me and my brother, but unfortunately we never...more
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Read in February, 2008
Coming from Kansas I always get comments like "where's Toto?" or "you are not in kansas anymore" and I politely laugh and put on a cheesy grin and think " ya like I haven't heard that one before."
So inorder to get over my hang up on the cutesy cliques I decided to listen to this book.
first off let me say it is highly imaginative and a good classic childrens tale but it is just that, a child's tale. I think it is pretty far streching when people start analyzing...more
So inorder to get over my hang up on the cutesy cliques I decided to listen to this book.
first off let me say it is highly imaginative and a good classic childrens tale but it is just that, a child's tale. I think it is pretty far streching when people start analyzing...more
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recommends it for:
anyone really
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Read in November, 2007
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Read in August, 2007
As the LOST book club book (www.washingtonpost.com/lost) for the month of August, The Wizard of Oz was a quick read. I'll be honest and say I was not looking forward to reading this book--mostly because the movie scares me (we'll blame it on wild childhood imagination run amok). Anyway, the book was pleasant and very fairytalish. I didn't know that Dorothy was younger, and the circumstances surrounding the Wicked Witches Death make...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in September, 1993
Unfortunately I couldn't find the edition I have. This is due in large part to the fact that many of my books were once my parents and grandparents (I have the entire Nancy Drew collection from the 50's).
The Wizard of Oz series changed my life immensley. In second grade I was Dorothy for Halloween. However, everyone was confused by my silver shoes. Way to be, MGM! In sixth grade I dressed up as Ozma of Oz in a giant green ballgown and poppies in my hair. Everyone thought I was Frida Ka...more
The Wizard of Oz series changed my life immensley. In second grade I was Dorothy for Halloween. However, everyone was confused by my silver shoes. Way to be, MGM! In sixth grade I dressed up as Ozma of Oz in a giant green ballgown and poppies in my hair. Everyone thought I was Frida Ka...more
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Read in January, 1988
I remember seeing the movie first, when I was very young, and then reading the first book a year or two later. I took a class in undergrad, largely devoted to comparing and contrasting the dangers of the capitalist city to the ideals of the pastoral where The Wizard of Oz was one of the books discussed. There were other interpretations involving various one-to-one correlations that I am not particuarly a fan of.
The story can mean a lot of things, I suppose. You probably can read it thin...more
The story can mean a lot of things, I suppose. You probably can read it thin...more
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Read in December, 2007
recommends it for:
everyone
I can't believe that I hadn't read this before, as it's exactly the sort of thing that I would have loved as a kid. Reading it now, I still thoroughly enjoyed it, although I get the feeling that some of the passages that I found uproariously funny I would have taken at face value when I was a kid.
The book is very different from the movie, not necessarily as far as the storyline goes, although it was considerably more convoluted. Essentially, the same things happened, just not really in the...more
The book is very different from the movie, not necessarily as far as the storyline goes, although it was considerably more convoluted. Essentially, the same things happened, just not really in the...more
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Read in March, 2008
Touted for its innovative tale-telling for children (particularly its American viewpoint), WWoO is now a testament to the evolution of children's literature since 1900.
I was excited to read this in preparation for reading MaGuire's Wicked, and I breezed through the first 100+ pages the night I opened it. The scenes of the first half were all quite familiar to me, but the second half was less so, and its simplistic, episodic conflict-resolution formula for each chapter failed to make it a bo...more
I was excited to read this in preparation for reading MaGuire's Wicked, and I breezed through the first 100+ pages the night I opened it. The scenes of the first half were all quite familiar to me, but the second half was less so, and its simplistic, episodic conflict-resolution formula for each chapter failed to make it a bo...more
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Read in November, 2007
"Once I had brains, and a heart also--so having tried them both, I should much rather have a heart."
--The Tinman
That's one of my all time favorite quotes. I'd never read the book before, though I've grown up on the classic movie. The book emphasizes more that each character (besides Dorothy) really had what they were searching for all along. Throughout the story, the scarecrow is seeking a brain, but seems to be the most-quick witted of the group. The Tinman seeks a heart, ...more
--The Tinman
That's one of my all time favorite quotes. I'd never read the book before, though I've grown up on the classic movie. The book emphasizes more that each character (besides Dorothy) really had what they were searching for all along. Throughout the story, the scarecrow is seeking a brain, but seems to be the most-quick witted of the group. The Tinman seeks a heart, ...more
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Read in July, 2008
recommended to A.L. by:
my never ending quest to read the classicsrecommends it for: 7 to 10 years old
What a wonderful, classic, and just plain fun children's book! The illustrations graced at least a third of the pages, which makes it a great book for kids who are just moving into the chapter book reading stage.
The best part of this book for me was getting to pick out pieces that I have seen in movies. Funnily, there was more straight-from-the-book action in the Muppets' version of Oz than in the traditional movie (everything from what D's shoes were really made from *not* rubies! to tiny...more
The best part of this book for me was getting to pick out pieces that I have seen in movies. Funnily, there was more straight-from-the-book action in the Muppets' version of Oz than in the traditional movie (everything from what D's shoes were really made from *not* rubies! to tiny...more
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recommends it for:
everyone
Having not come across this one in a very long time, my thoughts: So much stranger than the film, for sure. Also so much funnier, and far more cynical, despite the amusing little bit at the beginning from Baum about how fairy tales where bad things happen are obsolete. Less recognized as such, but this is nearly as loony as Alice in Wonderland--especially in that very same hyper-episodic feeling, where he just throws idea after idea after idea at you, with barely time to hold onto the characters...more
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Read in April, 1973
I remember making my sister watch this every year when it was shown on tv. I didn't even know it was a book until my Mom gave me a copy for Christmas. (Yay! Books for Christmas!)
I read and reread this novel. Dorothy was so brave and smart and compassionate. I played this outside, in the bathtub, and at my Grandma's with my younger cousin.
I ALWAYS played the Wicked Witch of the West. My cousin Pam was Dorothy, and Michael was the Scarecrow. I'll never forget Pam insisting I should ...more
I read and reread this novel. Dorothy was so brave and smart and compassionate. I played this outside, in the bathtub, and at my Grandma's with my younger cousin.
I ALWAYS played the Wicked Witch of the West. My cousin Pam was Dorothy, and Michael was the Scarecrow. I'll never forget Pam insisting I should ...more
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Read in March, 2008
recommends it for:
anyone.
I read this for the first time to my kids over a period of a week as their bedtime story. They loved it and would beg me to read another chapter. They enjoyed noting all the ways the scarecrow was the one coming up with all of the solutions to problems, the lion was the one exhibiting courage, and the tin man was so tenderhearted. My kids hadn't seen the movie, and I don't have any sentimental attachments to it, and I managed to get through high school without having to pick apart the story look...more
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I really enjoyed reading this with Aidan. For weeks he was turning his spider-man and Curious George into the scarecrow and tin woodsman, until we finally made a scarecrow in the garden.
However, I still find the movie stronger. I didn't like the first good witch, and I found all the different slaves of wicked witch rather tiresome (and gruesome---with tinman chopping off the heads of the wolf pack!). Maybe because the movie is a part of my consciousness now. I can't remember a time when I d...more
However, I still find the movie stronger. I didn't like the first good witch, and I found all the different slaves of wicked witch rather tiresome (and gruesome---with tinman chopping off the heads of the wolf pack!). Maybe because the movie is a part of my consciousness now. I can't remember a time when I d...more
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Read in May, 1974
The OZ books were one of my first "reading obsessions". I think I read this one pretty much as soon as I could read a novel, in late 2nd grade (it was a gift from my parents). The summer after 2nd grade, I discovered my dad's old 30's and 40's hardcover editions in my grandparents' garage, and brought a bunch home with me from our summer vacation. I stayed up way too late reading them all (sometimes in the dark when I was supposed to be asleep) during 3rd grade. My older son did pr...more
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Read in January, 1991
Yes, I know. How could I, of all people, rate this book only 3 stars? Call me a blasphemer, but I've always believed the movie version to be a better telling of the story. In the book, unlike the movie, Dorothy seems in no rush to get back to the loved ones she's abandoned at home- a fact that bothered me as a little girl. I give a lot of applause to the screenwriters of MGM who edited and condensed the book to better tell its moral- that if you ever go looking for your heart's desire you should...more
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Read in October, 2003
recommends it for:
Imaginative people
This was one of my favorite books growing up, and it is one of the only books I can read over and over again. A few years ago I read it again in Spanish and still enjoyed every page. This book takes the reader into another world full of creatures with good intentions, dreams, desperation and vengeance alike. Although the tale was originally a bedtime story L. Frank Baum would tell his children, he created a world that was full of terror, slavery, innocence and the hope that good does overcome ...more
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book data (includes all editions)
avg rating (all editions): 3.98 (3110 ratings) avg rating (this edition): 3.96 (1512 ratings) number of reviews: 327popular shelves
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quote
"the eyes winked three times, and then they turned up to the ceiling and down to the floor and rolled around so queerly that they seemed to see every part of the room. and at last they looked at dorothy again.
"why should i do this for you?" asked oz.
"because you are strong and i am weak; because you are a great wizard and i am only a helpless little girl," she answered."
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