In and out of Oz

I tend to have multiple books in progress at any given time. Often, at least one of them is a children’s or young adult book.

Right now, I’m working my way through the Oz books. I’m not sure yet if I want to go through the entire “Famous Forty” or just stop after the last of L. Frank Baum’s Oz books; I’ll decide after I finish Glinda of Oz, I guess.

Most of the series is actually not a re-read for me. When I was a child, my uncle gave me nice hardcovers of the first three – The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Marvelous Land of Oz, and Ozma of Oz. (Yes, I still have them on my shelves!) I read these quite a bit, but for some reason never made it through the rest of the series.

It’s been so long since I read the first three, it was nice to go through them again! Although The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has always been my least favorite of the three, I still find it quite a bit more enjoyable than the film based on it. Most of the characters annoy me much less in the book (Dorothy’s not so much of a damsel in distress, Glinda’s not so irritatingly omniscient, etc.) and there’s a little more going on in the plot. And Marvelous Land and Ozma are both pretty enjoyable.

I’m not actually that far into the series past that. I recently finished Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, which I quite liked, even though a good half of it didn’t actually take place in Oz. Although, it shows that continuity isn’t Baum’s strongest point – a key example being how the ruling family lost the throne and the Wizard’s role/non-role in it all. Oh well. I suppose I can live with that.

Now I’m about halfway through The Road to Oz and… I don’t know, I don’t care that much for it so far. I can’t quite put my finger on why. But once I do, I’m sure I’ll ramble about that here too!

This entry was posted in Books. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *