The Wizard of Oz

1900, two copies, one a paperback Rand McNally, the other a hardcover Reilly & Lee, both copyright 1956 but purchased in the mid-1970s
L. Frank Baum
Illustrated by W. W. Denslow
The Wizard of Oz
Prices unknown
Paperback partly colored in and stained, hardcover has worn corners but otherwise good
B+


I got the hardcover of this book for Christmas 1975, from the same aunt who bought me Eight Cousins.  I don't remember why I got a paperback after that as well, but it's clearly a used copy, because I scribbled out the original owner's name and "PRIVATE PROPERTY," to put my own name.  I also colored in some of the black & white pictures, carefully shading Dorothy's dress as blue, although I put the Munchkins into all different colors, ignoring the text.  The hardcover has a palate that sort of observes the sections of the country that she's in, so that the Emerald City is in green & white, although the Winkie section is orange rather than yellow.  Anyway, I've owned two copies of this book for over 35 years, although I'll probably toss the paperback now.

Eight Cousins didn't have this effect on me.  It didn't make me braid my hair and carry around whatever of my stuffed animals looked most like a Scotch terrier, playing I was on the Yellow Brick Road.  Its sequel didn't turn me into a "utopian socialist with a monarchist twist" well into my 20s.  True, there wasn't an awesome if unfaithful movie adaptation of Eight Cousins, but there must've been something about the first Oz book that made me go on to collect over 30 more.

Rereading it now, I'm most struck by its simplicity.  It's not Dick & Jane language, but it's spare, with none of the lush description I remember from some of the sequels.   I was not quite 8 when I first read it, but I don't remember struggling with it.  Incredibly, the Accelerated Reader List puts it as 8.1, meaning it's meant for 8th graders.  True, I was an advanced reader, but I don't know anyone who first encountered this story as a teenager.

Baum says in his introduction that he was trying to write "a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and nightmares are left out."  But I remember being frightened of the Kalidahs and the (unillustrated) giant spider.  Certainly, it's a heartache when the wizard flies off in the balloon and Dorothy thinks she can't get home.  Baum isn't macabre like the Grimms, but this isn't a light, fluffy children's book either.  Dorothy, possibly because she's illustrated to look like a fat, middle-aged hausfrau, always struck me as very mature in this book, more so than later.  She's probably the most sensible person around.  Her friends all have their delusions, both before and after the wizard gives them their prizes.

Well, there's one more sensible person.  I've always adored Glinda, so wise and beautiful (here with Art Nouveau curls and a heart-decorated frock).  She doesn't get to do much in her debut, especially compared to the movie, where she's merged with the Good Witch of the North and with Billie Burke's airhead persona.  But she shines in her brief moment, and I was so happy when she came back and kicked butt in the very next book.

I don't think Denslow's turn-of-the-century art has aged well.  He's generally more successful with animals than people, with the exception of not only Glinda but Uncle Henry, who in his one illustration looks so weary.  Toto is the one character that I think Denslow does better than John R. Neill.  (More on this when we get to The Road to Oz.)  I do like the way that the full-page illustrations are framed with a double line, often with a character sitting/standing in the lower left corner.  I also found it helpful as a child that he repeats a drawing of the Golden Cap three times, but with numbers crossed out, for those keeping score of the wishes.

The Golden Cap didn't make it into the movie, and the Silver Shoes became Ruby Slippers.  Those who gripe about how, for instance, the Harry Potter movies are "unfaithful" to the original source, have clearly never compared Wizard of Oz to its film version.  I never held the infidelity against the Judy Garland movie.  I loved it equally with the book.  Nowadays, I don't think I love either.  There are movies I enjoy more, and I do have to say that Little Women is a better children's story.  But there still remains something special about this first Oz book.