The Wizard of Oz

SUSPENSE!!! You don't know what's going to happen next! BOOM! BOOM! CRACK! If you saw the movie of The Wizard of Oz that's nothing, the book has better details. Dorothy and her friends have a great adventure, sad times, happy times, but they never give up. They face a Wicked Witch, the Wizard of Oz and more. They have tough times too. Each character is amazing. L. Frank Baum (the author) has a wonderful imagination. by: K.A.

I got this book when I was a little girl, about the age of 3 or 4, and every night my Mom would read each chapter too me. I loved this story, and I'm also a fan of the movie. I'm 13 now, and I still read the book sometime's (by myself, lol). I can't wait to show this book to my kids when I'm an adult! :)

Dorothy, a little girl with no parents, lives on a farm in Kansas with her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry. But one day, a cyclone comes to Kansas and takes Dorothy & her dog, Toto away from Kansas and dropes them in Oz. The only way she can get home is to find the wizard of Oz. And on her way there, she meets some friends with some wishes of the own.

This is a version of the classic story, simplified for kids. (The written version is a little different from the movie.) Although it is simplified, the sentences are complex enough to stretch the minds of younger readers. The book also has many illustrations (almost every other page is a black-and-white drawing). Unfortunately, the style of the illustrations reminds one of contemporary comic books (not a bad style in itself, but inappropriate for this book, I think). In addition, the illustrations do not always precisely match the description given in the text. Still, they do help to break up the text, and hold the interest of younger kids.The description says that this is intended for readers at the grade school level, but my three-year-old twins enjoyed having it read to them. (Then again, they have very long attention spans.) I was worried that they would find it too scary (in this version, the tinman kills a bunch of wolves with his axe, and the scarecrow breaks the necks of some evil crows), but they told me they weren't scared, and they don't seem to have had any bad dreams. (Your mileage may vary! ;-)This is part of a series, "Great Illustrated Classics." Based on this book (which I just happened to run across in a pharmacy), I am buying several more from the series online for my kids.