KidLit Forum

Hi, girls! I've also read "The Wizzard of Oz" by Frank Baum. It is about a girl named Dorothy who lives in Kansas with her aunt and uncle.She also has a dog, Toto, whom she takes everywhere she goes. A cyclone arrives and picks her, the dog and the house and takes them somewhere in the land of Oz.Things there are strange but Dorothy wants just to get back home again. She begins to travel to the Emerald City where a great wizzard lives, to ask for help. On her way she meets a Scarecrow who needs a brain, a Tin man who needs a heart and a cowerdly lion who needs courage.They all hope the Wizzard of Oz will help them before the Wicked Witch of West catches up with them. It's interesting the way they were received when reached the wizzard, I mean, it was an unexpected situation for them. When reached there, they all had to do something in order to get what they wanted. In the end, they were deceived when they found out that The Great Wizzard wasn't so great, in fact he was an ordinary, old man without any power at all, he was just "a humbug". Finally Dorothy's friends got what they wanted (it all stayed in their power to believe that) and Dorothy embraced her friends, knocked her heels together three times and returned home. This story ballances between good and evil, having two witches good (North and South) and the other two, bad (East and West). An interesting and a very important element in the story was "the water" that had magical power and could kill the Wicked Witch of West. I really liked rereading this story because I could imagine myself being able to travel into another world, that of Magic!

I've tried to bring a part of this story to one of my classes at 4th grade. I can admit that they really enjoyed it, and they seemed very interested by the story. They were surprised how these 3 characters Scarecrow, Tin man and the lion cannot see that they already have those characteristics what they are looking for. This story is quite enough similar to Alice in Wonderland, because both of them has a curious young girl as a main character, who is on an exploration in a different world. Both of them wants a life that is different from their own, but in the end they rather want to go home.

When reading this book I was surprised by the large amount of fantastic elements that were present in the novel.
One idea that I want to express is that fantastic is so affordable in the book whenever a complicated situation occurs fantastic is the solution.
I also want to say that the author wants us the readers to see that magic is handmade. Accordingly, Oz manages to fool all the people with handmade witchcraft.