Wizard of Oz (Oz Series 1)

I reread this for the first time in years (and years, and years!)
I was reminded why I always thought the big storm that blew Dorothy's house away was a CYCLONE. In the book, that's what it was called! I knew that it was not presented as a tornado, as it is in the movie! I knew that the many times that I was corrected for calling it a cyclone, I had a legitimate reason! And the book pretty much starts with the storm, none of this evil neighbor or cockamamie guy who was later represented as the Wizard of Oz! There was not even anything about the farm hands.
I do remember from when I actually read it before that there are ever so many more different strange towns and societies in the book than are actually presented in the movie. Don't get me wrong, the movie is fabulous in its own right, but it's missing so much from the book! It really is a fabulous book, being the start of the collection of children's books which are written for entertainment of children as opposed to instilling fear in them by virtue of "teaching them a lesson". A lot of the very best children's books do still have an underlying goal of being moral lessons, but The Wizard of Oz truly broke that mold and is presented with the entire purpose of being FUN.

I was determined to not allow it to be so long between experiences with this book, and I have succeeded :-) I still love the book – it displays such imagination and development of the individual characters that I will probably always treasure it.

As is so often the case, the book is very different from the movie; in this particular case, it's even more important because the movie is so very entrenched in our society. For instance, I don't think that most people realize that there are at least two civilizations in the book that don't appear anywhere in the movie. In the book, the whole trip to Oz is not a dream! There is no fortuneteller in the book, and Dorothy's friends in Oz are not workers on her uncle's farm. And there's no evil neighbor tries to do away with Toto! But it's still a fun story, and despite the fact that most of the scenes you remember from the movie have nothing to do with the book, the story is coherent and complete. There are similarities in character between some of the characters in the book and the movie, but the personalities, particularly of the Woodman, in the book, are somewhat filled out. I first read this when I was a child, but I had forgotten the order of certain scenes and characters. Upon reexperiencing it, I understand why things are what they are and the order in which they fall. This particular version had a comment by L Frank Boehm stating that he was glad to write a fairytale that had no "moral" lesson, as gid most of those by the Brothers Grimm, and most of the fairytale writers of the 18th century and before. That was another aspect of the movie that really had nothing to do with the book.
Really a good book, and the narrator was pretty good too, although I don't think that I determine who it was.