The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz

by Frank L Baum

Regina Barreca (Introduction)

THE INSPIRATION FOR THE CLASIC FILM

“Follow the yellow brick road!”

Since it first appeared in 1900, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has brought joy to generations. In it, a girl's dream world comes to life as the cyclone lifts Dorothy from Kansas, depositing her in the enchanted land of the Munchkins. There she meets the famous Oz characters: the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman, the Cowardly Lion, and the Wicked Witch of the West. Her adventures along the Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City and the Wizard himself evoke the rich, universal appeal of a classic fairy tale.

• ISBN10: 0451530292
• ISBN13: 9780451530295
• Publish Date: 3 October 2006 (first published 3 October 2000)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 17 May 2016
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Signet Classics
• Format: Paperback (US Mass Market)
• Pages: 240
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780451530295

Reviews

[bumblingbookworm]

This review was originally posted on The Bumbling Bookworm

I've been keen to read this for a while as I really loved the movie as a child, and I wanted to see how true to the book it was.  I enjoyed my read of this, it was quite a pleasant children's book.  I felt very familiar with the land of Oz and its inhabitants, and I couldn't help picturing the film as I read.  Dorothy came across as more of a go-getter in the book, but otherwise the characters were pretty true to how I knew them from the movie.  Wicked is also one of my all time favourite musicals, and I was quite pleased to see links to this in the book which weren't present in the movie.

What ruined my reading of this somewhat was the introduction by Regina Barreca at the start of this edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  Unlike Baum's introduction which lasted for all of a page, this went for almost 20 pages in great detail about the book and how differed from the movie.  Clearly, Barreca has never heard of spoiler alerts!  It should've been an afterword, not an introduction - 3 stars.
Check out the rest of my review here!

[inlibrisveritas]

After being a fan of the movie for so long this came off as a disappointment I guess. I like it for it's own version and story but when you compare I suppose it's not as fun, it's more straight forward and in some areas little to blunt.