Back when I read this aloud to Kid One, then three years old, I concluded it was one of the better Oz books. Now I've read it aloud again to Kids One and Two, now eight and five, and I stand by that assessment.
Ozma of Oz: A Record of Her Adventures with Dorothy Gale of Kansas, the Yellow Hen, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, Tiktok, the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger; Besides Other Good People too Numerous to Mention Faithfully Recorded Herein by L. Frank Baum |
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| Originally published: 1906 Acquired and previously read: August 2021 Read aloud: May–June 2026 |
As I prepped this review, I skimmed some of the reviews on LibraryThing, and I was struck by one that noted, "As much I enjoy the story... at no point in the story do I ever worry about Dorothy, because she never worries.... [C]onsidering the almost continuous stream of dicey situations she gets into, she remains zen and mostly unbothered at all times, which really renders her rather dull. It takes away a lot of the excitement that should be building... I guess this is because it is a children's adventure, and Baum didn't want his readers getting upset, but I always liked a book that could make you cry as well as make you laugh."
One of the interesting things about reading books aloud to kids is that you become aware of how kids process literature differently to how adults process literature, something you must of course have known at some point in your life, because you were once a kid yourself, but which you've clearly forgotten in the past thirty years. I agree that Baum usually has a very even-keeled tone: note very matter-of-fact way that things like the mutilation of the Tin Woodman or the attack of the wolves are communicated in Wonderful Wizard, something especially revealed by the contrasting choices made in some adaptations. A more modern writer, I suspect, would write sequences like Dorothy floating on the chicken coop in the ocean by telling you how scared Dorothy was, or crank up the suspense of the part where the Oz characters are trying to find the transformed Royal Family of Ev in the Nome King's palace and becoming transformed themselves.
But what I realized from reading this book aloud to a five-year-old is that a five-year-old doesn't need the prose to indicate how scary something is to be scared by it. Poor little guy was snuggling up to me for comfort when Dorothy was floating around on that chicken coop; poor little kid really did not like it when all the members of Ozma's party were being transformed, and I had to reassure him by reminding him that we had read later-set Oz books where Ozma was just fine! Kids, it seems, have an innate ability to just imagine themselves in a situation that adults lack. Kid Two doesn't need Baum to tell him Dorothy is scared because he imagines himself on a chicken coop in a storm in the Pacific Ocean and that is scary!
Kids also appreciate the moments of triumph: the kids loved when Billina hid herself and found out the Nome King's secret, and when she made her guesses—big whoops of delight.
Kid Two is apparently a Jack Pumpkinhead stan; near the end of the book, he complained that he hadn't turned up, and then was quite ecstatic when he appeared in the (what will be obligatory from this point on) end-of-book celebration scene. This was a fun one to read aloud again.
Continuity note: My kids did not remember that Glinda met the Nome King, and he acquired his Magic Belt, in Ages of Oz, even though we only read it five months ago! Oh well.
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