Kid One remembers Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz as one of their favorite Oz books. I don't think that's because of when we originally read it, as that was almost five years ago; rather, I believe that's because of the Shanower/Young comic adaptation, which they've read a couple times. As we began reading, it also became clear that their memories of Dorothy and the Wizard were muddled up with their memories of Sherwood Smith's Trouble Under Oz, which returns to some of the same locations, because they remembered the vegetable people and the mermaids under class—the latter being something Smith made up for her book.
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz by L. Frank Baum |
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| Originally published: 1908 Previously read: September 2021 Acquired: July 2026 Read aloud: July–August 2026 |
I don't know why Kid One remembers it as a favorite, but it is one of my favorites. One of Baum's best, in my opinion, with lots of weird, genuinely alien creations and settings: the cold-hearted Mangaboos, the invisible bears, the silent gargoyles, the weird sights they see while climbing Pyramid Mountain, the dragonettes. It's all deeply imaginative stuff, and quite fun to both read and read aloud.
Kid Two seemed into it; I think he was especially happy to see the Wizard again. He was obviously particularly taken, however, by the Wizard's trick with the nine tiny piglets; he began to declare that he was going to do a similar trick with nine kitties and/or nine chicken nuggets! This one is pretty suspenseful in parts, but Kid Two mostly seemed okay with it.
Kid One did pick up on the discontinuities with how Oz history was relayed to us back in Marvelous Land—they remembered that according to that book, the Wizard made three trips to see Mombi, and one of them, gave Ozma to her. But I told them there was an answer for this, and we read "Oz and the Three Witches" by Hugh Pendexter between this and Road to Oz to bridge the gap. But more on that in a future post!
This was one of the only books that on our first pass through the series I did not upgrade to a Books of Wonder facsimile, considering my childhood Dover edition good enough, so this time I took the opportunity to make the jump. I'm glad I did it, of course, but Dorothy and the Wizard did seem to have fewer color plates than Marvelous Land or Ozma, so the effect is somewhat diminished. I do like John R. Neill's style on these, though; it seemed a bit more old-fashioned to my untrained eye? Like something out of The Water-Babies.
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