At 110 years old The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz (aka The Wizard Of Oz), is one of the few children’s classic novels, that children read, and that WAS a children’s novel from the very beginning. Today a tour through the kids literature section of your local big box bookstore will probably turn up a dozen or so “classic novels” that purport to be ‘kid lit’ of some sort. For publishers what makes them ‘children’s classics’ is that they are public domain and they have recognizable titles. Few were written with actual children in mind, and due to the age many can use an English language that’s so archaic as to be hard for many adults to read. Not so with The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz. Sure it’s public domain too, but unlike most it was actually written with children wholly and completely in mind, unlike say, The Call Of The Wild, Frankenstein or Dracula.
In a 1975 essay entitled The American Grimm, comics legend Roy Thomas describes L. Frank Baum as the New World’s successor to “Hans Christian Anderson” and “The Brothers Grimm”. Writes Thomas:
“After trying his, hand at both acting and journalism, Lyman Frank Baum decided to create a unique Americcan fairy tale which did not owe its entire existence and background to the European tradition of goblins, witches, elves and the like. To do this, he set the beginning and ending of his story (which was originally called simply The Emerald City and at one point even From Kansas To Fairyland) in the heart of the American prairie. Of course. he didn’t completely keep out the witches.”
The Free Listens blog rates LibriVox’s audiobook version, as narrated by J. Hall, rather highly! Consider:
“J. Hall narrates the book with a pleasant American accent that would be at home at NPR. This isn’t a professional reading; Hall has several minor stumbles and he doesn’t attempt distinguishing voices for the characters. However, these minor faults can be easily overlooked when one considers the excellent pacing and emphasis with which Hall reads. The recording is free of any background sound, but has a compressed sound when played at higher volumes, perhaps due to noise filtering. All in all, this is a excellent choice if you’re looking for a recording of The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz that comes without silly voices or overacting.”
The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz
By L. Frank Baum; Read by J. Hall
1 |M4B| File, 25 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 3 Hours 45 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: March 10, 2007
The timeless story of the Wizard Of Oz. Follow Dorothy as she leaves Kansas for Oz on a cyclone. She meets many strange, and wonderful people and creatures along the way. Enjoy it again with your children and family.
Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/the-wonderful-wizard-of-oz.xml
iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|
[via Free Listens]
Posted by Jesse Willis
The Oz witches are much more in the tradition of American witches of urban legend — they all live in a big spooky house at the end of the street., and some of them turn out not to be all that bad, while some of them are scary and really out to get you. I still don’t know where the bucket of water comes from. Presumably it relates to “running water”, which witches notoriously couldn’t stand. In its decisiveness, it’s very like Hansel and Gretel and the few other tales where a normal person can win decisively by some sudden action. It seems so obviously right that you don’t question it.
In worldbuilding and monsters, though, there’s no denying that Baum was pretty close to total originality, while staying tied to the well of the true quill of legendariness.
I agree completely.
What struck me the last time I read it was how passive Dorothy is. Stuff just happens to her.
Hey Jesse, since you’re talking about Oz, I’d like to point out Roy Trumbull who reads a lot of early 20th Century stories. I love his style as he doesn’t sound like someone reading a book, he sounds like a grandfatherly storyteller telling you a tale. He has a pretty good listing of stuff at archive.org
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=Roy%20Trumbull
Hope that link works!
Best – Dan
Where did this Oz map originate? I’ve not seen it before.
its from the MARVEL COMIC adaptation, if I recall correctly