The Wonderful Wizard of OZ

Overview

"Folklore, legends, myths and fairy tales have followed childhood through the ages, for every healthy youngster has a wholesome and instinctive love for stories fantastic, marvelous and manifestly unreal. The winged fairies of Grimm and Andersen have brought more happiness to childish hearts than all other human creations."

Editorial Reviews

Gr 2-7-Baum's much-loved tale of four unlikely friends and their quest to find the Wizard has been subjected to countless retellings and adaptations, many of them just faint shadows of the original. Here, the entire story is enlivened with luminous watercolors. A combination of full spreads and partial page scenes portrays the group's feats and foibles. As he did so successfully in The Wind in the Willows (Harcourt, 2002), Foreman uses his skillful command of color and light to emphasize the story's sense of adventure and enchantment. Readers many feel a need for sunglasses as they come upon the Emerald City. Subtle humorous details, such as the winged monkeys decked out in Red Baron-style goggles, are sure to elicit chuckles. The expressive fumbling scarecrow is the visual star of the quartet. However, the portrayal of a yellow-haired, nondescript Dorothy is a disappointment. Overall, this is an appealing and accessible alternative to the many cartoon versions of this modern classic.-Heide Piehler, Shorewood Public Library, WI Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Author Information

Bio of L. Frank Baum

Best known as the author of the Wizard of Oz series, Lyman Frank Baum was born on May 15, 1856, in New York. When Baum was a young man, his father, who had made a fortune in oil, gave him several theaters in New York and Pennsylvania to manage. Eventually, Baum had his first taste of success as a writer when he staged The Maid of Arran, a melodrama he had written and scored. Married in 1882 to Maud Gage, whose mother was an influential suffragette, the two had four sons. Baum often entertained his children with nursery rhymes and in 1897 published a compilation titled Mother Goose in Prose, which was illustrated by Maxfield Parrish. The project was followed by three other picture books of rhymes, illustrated by William Wallace Denslow. The success of the nursery rhymes persuaded Baum to craft a novel out of one of the stories, which he titled The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Some critics have suggested that Baum modeled the character of the Wizard on himself. Other books for children followed the original Oz book, and Baum continued to produce the popular Oz books until his death in 1919. The series was so popular that after Baum's death and by special arrangement, Oz books continued to be written for the series by other authors. Glinda of Oz, the last Oz book that Baum wrote, was published in 1920. 030

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Additional Info

Imprint

Ebookslib

Filesize

176.36 KB

Number of Pages

N/A

eBook ISBN

9781102328568