Well what can I say about this incredible book. This story started it all. It was a huge success when it was published in 1900 and an even bigger success today. While reading this book, you're sure to notice more than a few changes and omissions compared to the wonderful 1939 movie classic. Baum weaves us into his magic spell of imagination, excitement, and adventure as we land in Munchkin Country, walk to the Emerald City, battle a Wicked Witch in Winkie Country, and finally make our way to Quadling Country. Never has an assembly of so many fantastical characters come together than in THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ. Hailed as the FIRST true American fairy tale, it will bring hope, joy, and magic into every person's life from ages 2 to 92. Don't miss out on the book that brought you the 1939 movie. You will feel as one with Dorothy and Toto and sympathize with the plights of the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, and Cowardly Lion. Don't forget to read Baum's other Oz books....he wrote more than one ya know!

"The Wizard of Oz" by L. Frank Baum is the book that started all the Oz mania! I've read this book many times and I love it! Dorothy Gale and her little black dog, Toto are whisked from Kansas by a cyclone where she ends up in a magical fairy land called Oz. She meets some interesting friends along the way such as the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion. They face many adventures and dangers in this wonderful book. You may think "why read the book? I've seen the movie!" Well it's my all time favorite movie too but the book's better! Once you read it I'm sure you'll be hooked on Oz!

This story is about a girl named Dorothy. Dorothy had a dog called Toto and she lived in Kansas. One day a tornado came to Kansas and her house got in to it. When Dorothy woke up, she was in the Munchkin Land (land of little people.) On her way to Emerald City she met with some friends, Tin Woodman, Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow. Dorothy and her friends were going to the Emerald city to see the Oz. On her way to Emerald City, Dorothy and her friends got into a lots of trouble with Wicked Witch and other creapy stuffs. Dorothy, wanted to go back to Kansas, Lion, wanted to be brave, Scarecrow, wanted a brain, and the Tin Woodman, wanted a heart. If you want to know the end of this book, read it. I reccomend to all people with all ages. This is a great book!!

In The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz by L. Frank Baum the fictional Dorothy spends just four pages in Kansas with her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry before a cyclone takes her to Oz, a country of marvelous beauty. This novel explores the life of a fictional Dorothy who never escapes the harsh reality of her life in Kansas except in the world of her imagination.

WAS mixes a historian's dedicated search for details with a fictional story that spans a century to create a sweeping novel of the American experience. Ryman focuses on the tragedy of his characters' lives to help us understand our collective need for a fairy land like OZ where love and kindness are the rule. Using carefully researched historical details Ryman builds a truly believable but sadly horrific story of a fictional Dorothy Gael of Kansas. Placing her in such accurate settings gives incredible power to her story and the stories of those her life inspires. Drawn into the vortex of her tragedy are a mixture of real and fictional characters including L. Frank Baum (the writer of the original Oz novels), the young Judy Garland, an actor with AIDS who is compelled to play the Scarecrow, and his psychotherapist who met the elderly Dorothy just before she dies. The story takes place in the 1870s, the 1920s, the 1950s, and the 1980s. Yet these disparate plots and eras are tied together wonderfully and all given a sense of reality based on the historic research that went into the book.

In a postscript called Reality Check at the end of the book the writer sorts out the historic from the fictional. Here he also talks a bit about the philosophy he has toward fantasy and realism, a theme that is constantly addressed throughout the novel. This is not about Oz, except as an ideal. The novel is about the tragedy of life, and it explores why the pain of our lives makes Oz so important to us all.

WAS explores the reality of Oz, what would have happened if Dorothy Gale was a real little girl in the Midwest left to be raised by her elderly aunt and uncle. Auntie Em does not like the daughter of her flashy prettier sister and sets her to work about the farm and kills her dog Toto. Uncle Henry is a child abuser who repeatedly rapes her. The only shining episode in her life is a brief stint of a substitute teacher, L. Frank Baum, who hears her tell her sorrowful life in a grief-stricken essay and decides to immortalize her in his book as a means of somehow making up to her what life has destroyed.

In parallel stories, Frances Gumm is transforming into Judy Garland, and the straitjackets that stardom in the early Golden Era has to offer --- diet pills, chest bindings, a strident stage mother.

And a gay man named Jonathan in the 1990s who has been obsessed with The Wizard of Oz since childhood searches for meaning in Kansas as he tracks the fate of the real Dorothy before AIDS claims him.

This is a captivating read that will stay with you long after you are finished. You will never look at "The Wizard of Oz" the same way again.

Geoff Ryman's Was is amazingly good. It tells the story of several trips down the Yellow Brick Road from the tale of the abused orphan, Dorothy Gael, in nineteenth century Kansas to Judy Garland making a movie of a life little Dorothy never had to Jonathan, dying of AIDS, returning to Kansas and his belief in Oz. All of these stories speak the truth about fantasy (if such a thing is possible) and the power of these other worlds to sustain, taunt, and guide us, particulary in childhood. There are many themes throughout this tangled and deliciously written narrative and it will touch any reader who has every felt the power of escape take hold of them as a child and whisk them away for just a little while, like Dorothy in the cyclone. A touching, beautiful tale that easily ranks in my eternal top ten. A book to be treasured and re-read over the years.