The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

[Tami]

We are going to have one thread for each book as now Goodreads has made a spoiler tag that you can use to put before anything that is a spoiler. Use your discretion as to what would be a pretty big spoiler and label it. Please put up to what page the spoiler is for.

To create the tag simply do this:

< spoiler> Blah blah blah spoilery stuff < /spoiler>


*Take out the spaces in both of the spoiler tag.

It will look like this:


(view spoiler)[This is a spoiler. Spoilers should be labeled so you don't ruin books for others. (hide spoiler)]

Discuss away...

[[deleted user]]

I LOVE THIS BOOK! Legit, the Oz books are my favorite books of all time so I am very excited this got chosen.

On that note, here are some of my views on the book:
(view spoiler)[
I very much enjoy that he flying monkeys are more than just mindless minions like in the movie. They are a race of creatures that have been put under a spell and made to obey the owner of the hat. I thought that this was brilliant. It gives the characters more structure, and I feel like it adds more to the story since at one point Dorthy gets a hold of the hat, and then she can ask them for help. Another race I enjoy in the books are the field mice.

I thin my favorite part of the book is the way the Wizard portrays himself to the lion, scarecrow, tin man, and Dorthy. Each one is unique, and all was able to be explained still in the end. I feel like a character of his education and skill might not have been able to create a machine as involved as in the movie, and the items in the book are more fitting to him, and to each member f the party. I also liked that each member actually got a physical gift from the wizard. I can picture the scarecrow with pins sticking out of his head every time he thinks really hard. (hide spoiler)]

I would like to add, that if you really liked this book, then take a look at the rest of the series. They are all free o read on any ereader and online. They are all Wonderful! :)

[Serenity]

I thought the book was interesting, but much too juvenile to be completely enjoyable. I recognize their literary/cultural value, but much prefer modern interpretations of this story. Wicked, the musical, is one of my favorite stories/performances of all time.

[Kimberly]

Serenity, I can't even tell you how much I love that musical! :)

[Beks]

I read this once for school in third grade, and all I really remembered about it were the shoes, How the Lion got his courage and that it seemed, like a really long, book.

Reading it again, I thought it was adorable esp. (view spoiler)[the part of liquid courage, that was something no 8 year old should have understood, but I bet my teacher got a kick out of (hide spoiler)]

I really liked this one a lot.

[Serenity]

Kimberly wrote: "Serenity, I can't even tell you how much I love that musical! :)"

I KNOW, Elphaba has to be one of my absolute favorite fictional characters ever! Although I hear the book by Gregory Maguire isn't all that good...

[Kayla]

This book just came in at the library. I should hopefully be able to get to it in a couple of days. I'm really interested to see how it compares to the movie, which I've seen countless times. I hear it's really different.

[Kimberly]

Serenity wrote: "Kimberly wrote: "Serenity, I can't even tell you how much I love that musical! :)"

I KNOW, Elphaba has to be one of my absolute favorite fictional characters ever! Although I hear the book by Gregory Maguire isn't all that good... "

I know some people who absolutely love it, I also know some people that don't. I don't really care for it... I like the musical too much.

[[deleted user]]

Kimberly wrote: "Serenity wrote: "Kimberly wrote: "Serenity, I can't even tell you how much I love that musical! :)"

I KNOW, Elphaba has to be one of my absolute favorite fictional characters ever! Although I hear..."

I absolutely LOVED the Wicked series. I think they key to enjoying it is to remember that the musical is loosely based off of the book, so there are going to be some big differences. Also, Gregory Maguire has written some fantastic retellings. Mirror Mirror is a Snow White book, and he has a number of others.

But I digress, Wicked is a wonderful series, but again, go into it with an open mind.

[Serenity]

Amy wrote: "Kimberly wrote: "Serenity wrote: "Kimberly wrote: "Serenity, I can't even tell you how much I love that musical! :)"

I KNOW, Elphaba has to be one of my absolute favorite fictional characters ever..."

Yeah the series looks really interesting and I keep wanting to try it, but everytime I would go on the Goodreads page and read all the negative/lukewarm reviews (that say things like, GM introduces interesting characters/plotpoints without ever mentioning them again; the pacing sucks; gets worse as series goes on, etc.) and I get scared off...

[Nicole]

Serenity wrote: "Amy wrote: "Kimberly wrote: "Serenity wrote: "Kimberly wrote: "Serenity, I can't even tell you how much I love that musical! :)"

I KNOW, Elphaba has to be one of my absolute favorite fictional c..."

I really enjoyed Gregory Maguire's Wicked when I read it. It may have been because I haven't seen the musical so have nothing to compare it to, but I really didn't have any major complaints with it. I would suggest it!

I just finished all of my finals so I haven't gotten around to reading the Wizard of Oz just yet but I plan on taking it with me when I babysit tonight. I'm interested to see how it differs from the movie and how it fits in with Wicked. Thoughts to come :)

[Tami]

Did any of you have "Book Talks" in school? We had this program in 7th, 8th and 9th grade where each month we got a book to read and then had to meet with the others in our grade to review it as a group. When we were in 9th grade we were the group leaders of the 7th grade reads. Other than that, parents filled in as group leaders.

Anyways, this was one of the books I was leader of the group in 9th grade for the 7th graders. The groups were usually 8-10 kids and all but 1 girl had watched the movie instead of reading the book. We had a little crossword made up and they didn't get the answers. Bet they didn't like their grades!

I have Wicked and Son of a Witch at the house to read, but haven't picked them up yet. My sister loved them.

[Kayla]

I finished this book last month but realized I hadn't thrown in my two cents.

(view spoiler)[First off, I want to say that I really enjoyed this book and getting to know the characters in a different way, particularly Dorothy. It was interesting reading about her character as a little girl when I'm so used to thinking of her as the teenager from the movie. And I loved all of the new creatures and residents that showed up in the book that were not included in the movie, such as those gigantic beasts (forgot what they're called) and the little China people. The chapter with the China people was my favorite part of the book, and I wish they could have been in the movie.

With that said, I have to admit that I liked the movie better, mainly because of the Wicked Witch of the West. I was disappointed to find out that the witch did not play a very big role in the book. I was hoping to learn more of her story like I did with the other characters, but she remained a rather minor, mysterious character.

I also like the wizard a lot more in the movie. I actually kind of disliked him in the book. I can't exactly pinpoint why, but I thought the wizard in the book came across as selfish and very cowardly with little redeeming qualities. In the movie, I was able to see the sincerity in the wizard's eyes when he apologized for tricking everyone and I saw that he looked like a very nice old man, but in the book I didn't quite believe his apologies. When he tricked the scarecrow, lion and tin man into thinking he was actually giving them what they wanted, it didn't feel to me like he really wanted to help them but like he was just unshamelessly fooling them again, resorting back to his old ways that he had just apologized for. There was also the absence of the speeches that he had given to each character in the movie, assuring the lion, tin man and scarecrow that they each had what they desired all along. He let the scarecrow go on thinking he had given him brains when he really just stuffed his head with bran. I really didn't like that.

But those are the only two problems I had with the book. Otherwise, I enjoyed it quite a bit and I'm glad I finally got around to reading this classic. (hide spoiler)]