Adventures in Oz Vol. I

L. Frank Baum invented the land of Oz in 1900 with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the book that introduced Dorothy Gale, Toto, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, the Cowardly Lion, and the Wizard himself. The book was an immediate hit and Baum spent the rest of his life writing sequels. By the time he died in 1919 he had produced thirteen full Oz novels, plus a number of shorter pieces, and other writers continued the series under the Oz name long after his death.

Adventures in Oz Vol. I collects several of the original Baum Oz books in a single volume. Depending on the edition, these typically include The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Marvelous Land of Oz, and Ozma of Oz, the first three core entries in the series. These books established the geography and the rules of Baum’s invented continent, with its four colored lands meeting at the Emerald City in the center, and they introduced characters like Princess Ozma, the Hungry Tiger, Tik Tok, and Billina the talking yellow hen.

What makes Baum’s Oz books still readable more than a century later is his sense of play. He wrote for children but he never talked down to them. The plots are full of strange creatures, sudden journeys, and moral situations that are sometimes more complicated than they look. The Marvelous Land of Oz, the second book, is particularly interesting for adult readers because of its gender themes and its surprisingly subversive ending.

For families reading aloud or for readers who only know Oz through the famous 1939 MGM film, going back to Baum’s original novels is a delight. The book version of Dorothy is a different girl from Judy Garland’s, and the wider Oz universe Baum built is far stranger and richer than the movie ever suggested.