The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

A short, quick classic that moves from scene to scene, and the grim details are tucked inside a gentle tone. The road trip and the humbug Wizard are the draw, and the last chapters change what the shoes mean. Four out of five (draft). Read it if: you only know the 1939 film and want the original; you want a short classic you can finish in an afternoon; you like fairy tales with odd, inventive set pieces. Skip it if: you want a hero who changes: the friends already have what they ask for; you dislike episodic plots that move on to a new danger each chapter; you expect the film's songs and its dream ending: neither is in the text.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz summary, chapter by chapter, following the four wishes: the Witch of the West, the humbug and the silver shoes. Full spoilers. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Summary: Chapter by Chapter →

Is the Wizard of Oz book like the movie? The shoes, the dream, Glinda and the chase, checked against the novel. Film claims are labelled reported. Spoilers. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz book vs movie →

A Kansas girl named Dorothy is carried to the Land of Oz by a cyclone. She follows a road of yellow brick toward the Emerald City, where the Wizard might send her home, and picks up a Scarecrow, a Tin Woodman and a Cowardly Lion along the way, each hoping the Wizard will grant a wish.

The Project Gutenberg text (ebook number 55) has 24 chapters. By our count the chapters run to about 39,400 words, short enough to read in an afternoon.

L. Frank Baum. The Gutenberg text includes his short introduction, dated Chicago, April 1900, in which he says he wrote it to please children and left out the heartaches and nightmares.

No. In the text they are silver. The words silver shoes appear about 20 times, and the word slippers appears zero times. The word ruby appears five times, never for a shoe.

Baum wrote it for children, and the tone is gentle. By our count it still has some grim details, including forty wolves, forty crows and a Tin Woodman who is cut apart by an enchanted axe, so parents may want to read it first.