Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Book Review of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Cowardly_lion2 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum is a an outstanding book where a girl, named Dorothy, gets whisked away by a tornado to the Wonderful World of Oz.

In this story, Dorothy has to talk to a talking Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, and a Tin Woodman.  She must find the Wizard of Oz to send her back home, but when she gets to Oz, she finds that he is an imposter.  After that, Dorothy goes to Glinda, the good witch, who gives her a pair of flying shoes which Dorothy uses to fly home.

If you think about it, isn't Dorothy like the Greek God, Hermes, the messenger of the gods?  They both have flying shoes.  Hermes took people to the land of the dead, and Dorothy leads the tin woodman, lion, and the scarecrow to the City of Emeralds to find Oz.  Could the Tin Woodman be one of Hephaestus' automatons?  Could the Cowardly Lion be like the Nemean Lion, a vicious monster?  Ha, Ha.  Was this book inspired by Greek Mythology? 

(Answer the poll on the right sidebar, or post a comment to give me your opinion.)

The moral of the story seems to be that there is no place like home.  I think that because even when Dorothy had a whole kingdom at her fingertips, she still missed home.

This book also has flabbergasting ***chuckles*** illustrations.  They are inked drawings, with amazing effects.  For example, in the illustration at the beginning of Chapter 4 - The Road through the Forest, you can almost see into the forest with the 3D effect.oz

I recommend this book to anybody who wants a fantasy adventure story.  It's a thrill ride all the way through.

Here is a link to the Wikipedia on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Baum wrote more than one book; did you know that? Perhaps he wrote many, for all I know. I enjoyed his tale about Santa Claus as a baby and growing up.

Greetings from a retired school teacher who read a comment by your mother.