Reading Little Wizard Stories of Oz Aloud to My Son

 Little Wizard Stories of Oz by L. Frank Baum, illustrated by John R. Neill

I was, of course, not just content to read my son the original fourteen Oz novels by Baum. Why not the whole Famous Forty? Heck, why not all the "quasi-canonical" stories too?? Why not all the "Borderlands" novels???

Contents originally published: 1913
Acquired: July 2013
Previously read: December 2016
Read aloud: December 2021

My ambitions began with Little Wizard Stories of Oz, which collects six Oz short stories that came out as individual booklets in 1913 in, if I recall correctly, the run-up to the publication of The Patchwork Girl of Oz, which resumed the series after Baum's attempt at ending it, but had just turned out to be a two-year hiatus. Each pairs off two Oz characters: the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger, Dorothy and Toto, Tik-Tok and the Nome King, Ozma and the Wizard, Jack Pumpkinhead and the Saw-Horse, the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman. I actually didn't know about this until I was an adult, and only read it for the first time a few years ago.

With six short stories, it reads aloud very quickly, especially when my son insisted on two chapters back-to-back; we got through it in just a couple days. I don't think it will ever be anyone's favorite Oz book. but I particularly enjoyed reading the Lion/Tiger story: the Hungry Tiger decides that he finally will eat a baby, but then ends up helping the baby find its mother. My son didn't like the idea that the Tiger would eat a baby, though. He also didn't like Tik-Tok getting broken, but I do really enjoy my supercilious voice for Kaliko, the Nome King's steward.

There are some good hijinks in the Jack Pumpkinhead one, too, and the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman one as well. I am not sure my son got a ton out of it, though... but then there's not a ton to get! Nice John R. Neill pictures in this one.