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| Published: 2000 Annotated edition originally published: 1973 Acquired: November 2011 Previously read: April 2013 Read aloud: July 2021 |
My eldest son has long been interested in The Wizard of Oz; one of the books a friend gave us when he was born was the improbably titled Little Master Baum: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: A Colors Primer: A BabyLit Book, which rearranges the story into a set of color-coded two-page spreads of objects. At some point—I don't remember how these days—he discovered my actual copy of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and I must have "read" it to him a million time by just summarizing the story with reference to the pictures. (I have a nice Books of Wonder facsimile edition of the original 1900 edition.) He was into it enough that my mother bought him a set of Wizard of Oz dolls for Christmas. I began to wonder if he might want to read the actual novel, word by word, but an article I read suggested age 3 was more likely. As we neared his third birthday, I realized he was sitting through whole issues of My Little Pony in one sitting (something he hadn't been able to do a couple months prior), and he was also down for some long, text-dense picture books. So I offered to read him the whole thing in its entirety and he agreed.
At first I think he was a bit baffled—Dorothy used to get out of Kansas in thirty seconds, now it took ten minutes!—but he quickly became an enthusiastic devotee. We would do one chapter a day, often two or more, though I quickly worked out that more than two chapters in one sitting was not compatible with his attention span. Knowing the outline of the whole story from having read it in summary form before definitely helped him keep track of things, and fit with the advice that article gave me.
It's a fun book to read aloud, with lots of room for good voices. For Dorothy I just used my normal voice. For the Munchkins and Emerald City residents, I did my normal voice, but pitched upward at the end of sentences; I matched this with the Scarecrow but made it a bit hoarse. I was surprised by how the Tin Woodman ended up with an English accent, but it seemed to fit the character perfectly. The Cowardly Lion was of course very deep. One criticism people lob at the book is that it's episodic, but when you are reading it out loud a chapter at a time, that kind of thing doesn't really register—the Dainty China Country's is today's episode, rather than an irrelevant diversion. (Though I suspect it's one he won't really remember.)
On this reread—who knows how many times I've read it now—I was struck by how the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, and Cowardly Lion already possess their desire qualities before they are gifted by the Wizard (something lost from the MGM film): the Scarecrow comes up with the best plans, the Woodman always acts with compassion, the Lion is always brave. But also that they actually kind of lose them once they receive them; they are kind of stupid and uncompassionate when visiting the Dainty China Country, and the Lion's means of killing the giant spider isn't exactly an act of bravery. I'm curious to see how this plays out going forward.
The novel's violence was also interesting, and somewhat jarring compared to modern children's literature sensibilities. But surely a child of 1900 would have much more contact with death than my own son—and the book is always so matter of fact about it that it cannot disturb.
I couldn't find my Books of Wonder facsimile, so I had to read him my Norton annotated edition. This has the complete text and illustrations, though the color plates are all in one spot, so every chapter we had to check there for any relevant pictures. The main problem it represented is that I would often get distracted from reading aloud by reading footnotes!
When I was in high school, I babysat a couple of kids—I think they would have been around six and seven at the time?—and at the suggestion my English teacher, I read them the Harry Potter books aloud, a chapter at a time. I think the first three were out when we started, and the fourth came out while I was babysitting them still. They loved it, and I loved it, and ever since them I've wanted to read something aloud to my own children someday. I am glad to finally have the opportunity. He's liked it enough that at the time I write this we've already plowed on through Marvelous Land and we are a few chapters away from finishing Ozma of Oz. Baum's original fourteen or fifteen will keep us some time... and then I guess there's always the rest of the Famous Forty!
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