For some reason, this terrific book is largely unread.  Perhaps because we are all so familiar
with the movie, people just don't seem to read the book.

That's too bad, because it's great.  Baum has created a uniquely American fairy tale.  It teaches
several wonderful lessons:  the Wizard can't help you, but you can help yourself and there's no
place like home. What more could you ask from a book for kids, or adults?

(Reviewed:)

Grade: (A+) Orrin C. Judd

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L. Baum Links:

    -WIKIPEDIA: L. Frank Baum
    -ESSAY: Somewhere Over The Rainbow — In Which L. Frank Baum Helps You Choose Whom To Vote For (Nils Peterson, 8/21/23, 3 Quarks)
    -ESSAY: The Wizard of Oz: A Parable on Populism (Henry Littlefield)
    “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” as a Fable of Modern America (Mark Malvasi, 6/05/18, Imaginative Conservative)
    -ESSAY: The Parable on Populism: An Autobiography of a Wizard (Christopher Steven Marcum)
    Goodbye, yellow brick road (Bill O'Rahilly, August 4 2003, Financial Times)

Book-related and General Links:

Other Oz books by L. Frank Baum:
    -The Land of Oz
    -Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz
    -The Road to Oz
    -The Emerald City of Oz
    -The Patchwork Girl of Oz
    -Tik-Tok of Oz
    -The Scarecrow of Oz
    -Rinkitink in Oz
    -The Lost Princess of Oz
    -The Tin Woodsman of Oz
    -The Magic of Oz
    -Glinda of Oz

WEBSITES:
    -Famous Forty of Oz
    -ESSAY: The Man Behind the Curtain: L. Frank Baum and The Wizard of Oz (Linda McGovern, Literary Traveler)
    -ESSAY : Ode to the Wonderful Wizard (Kelli Chipponeri , Book Reporter)
    -ESSAY : THE WIZARD OF OZ: An Appreciation (Ron Kaplan , Book Reporter)
    -Oz Country (MARIUS BEWLEY, NY Review of Books)
    -REVIEW: of The Annotated Wizard of Oz The Fate of the Munchkins (ALISON LURIE, NY Review of Books)
    -Gore Vidal: On Rereading the Oz Books (NY Review of Books)
    -Gore Vidal: The Wizard of the 'Wizard'  (NY Review of Books)
    -ARTICLE: Celebrating 100 Years of Oz, Wherever the Road May Lead (NY Times)
    -ESSAY: The Children's Canon (Nicholas Von Hoffman, Civilization)
    -REVIEW : of Oz Before the Rainbow : L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz on Stage and Screen to 1939, By Mark Evan Swartz (Frank Norman, The Age)

I agree! Fairytales are so much better than the boring books by Faulkner and Kafka that we have to suffer through in school and that teach us nothing at all that'll be usefull to us ever. Who wants to always just read boring books anyway?

- james karlan

- May-14-2003, 04:03

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