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    The Wizard of Oz
    The Wizard of Oz
    The Wizard of Oz
    Audiobook4 hours

    The Wizard of Oz

    Written by L. Frank Baum

    Narrated by Adams Morgan

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Adams Morgan's approach actually enhances the fantastical events. -- School Library Journal

    The fantasies of Dorothy and Toto accompanied by the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman and the Cowardly Lion in the Land of Oz. This tale has been adapted into plays, radio and TV shows, and animated numerous times, but the actual story has a charm of it's own.

    (Lyman) Frank Baum was born on May 15, 1856 in Chittenango, NY. In 1882, with his father's financial help, he took his five-act Irish melodrama, The Maid of Arran, to New York City, where it was successful. At his mother-in-law's suggestion, he published his first book Mother Goose in Prose in 1897, and in 1899, his Father Goose: His Book, became the best-selling picture book. However, Baum is best known for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which became influential to the American musical theatres. He died in 1919.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSpotify Audiobooks
    Release dateJan 1, 2001
    ISBN9781467610629
    Author

    L. Frank Baum

    Lyman Frank Baum (1856–1919) was an American children’s book author, best known for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. He wrote thirteen novel sequels, nine other fantasy novels, and several other works (55 novels in total, plus four "lost" novels, 83 short stories, over 200 poems, an unknown number of scripts, and many miscellaneous writings).

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    Reviews for The Wizard of Oz

    4/5

    4,087 ratings220 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I made the mistake of growing up watching the film and not reading the book until adulthood. They are VERY different. This novel is a lot more graphic and dark. Not at all like the yellow brick road we skipped down with Judy Garland.
    • 3/5
      Rating is closer to 3.5 stars. I have parts about this I loved and parts that bothered me so my thoughts a left a jumbled mess. First off, if you do not know this story, go learn about it. Everyone should know the Wizard of Oz and most of us do. Although I think many of us are more familiar with the movie. The story concept is just great and one I have always loved and all that credit goes to the author.

      Now, I must admit I like the movie more than the book. While the basic story is great and Dorothy being a little girl does put a more child-like quality of the book there is a lot of violence in this story. The Tin Man's story is both sad and horrifying and might be a bit much for a young child to handle. And the neck breaking, limb lopping as they make their way across Oz was harsh. While it is not very graphic in description it is still easy to visualize. So while the story is written in a style for young children, about half the content is on the mature side.

      This is a short story being between 110-140 pages (depending on the pictures of various editions). The chapters are short and the pace is fast. A lot happens in that time. It is still a fantastical adventure and in some ways getting the back story of the characters added to it's enrichment.

      There are quite a few differences from the movie to the book. From the house Dorothy green up in, the Ruby vs silver slippers, the Winged Monkeys, The Emerald City, etc. It was very interesting to see and discover the differences. One thing that really jumped out at me was how each character acted versus what they kept saying they wanted from the Wizard. Amusing aspect to the story, making it all the more endearing.


      Overall enjoyable. I am curious to continue the series yet there is no feeling of needing to rush to the next book. It is a series to read at leisure. I advise caution for young children for this book. If a movie copied the details of the book, it would not be rated G. So just a heads up, I advise you to read it before your child does if allowing them to read this at a young age.
    • 4/5
      The book showed resemblance to 'Narnia' and 'Alice in Wonderland' but for younger readers. It was quick and very imaginative. A lot of lessons can be learned from the book. I wished there more action :) and the a slower pacing.
    • 5/5
      One of my favourites! I just recently finished reading this (again), but this time to my 6yob. If you've only seen the movie, be warned, the book is very different. The whole wicked witch story comprises only one chapter of this book.
    • 4/5
      Why have I never read this book before?! Okay, I'll tell you why I've never read this book before - I HATE the movie. There, I said it. Get the lashings over with now, because I doubt I'll be changing my mind any time soon. The music! The stupid man in a lion costume! The wrong-coloured shoes! No no no. So, as you might imagine, it was a very pleasant surprise when I found myself, twenty pages into the book, sitting with a gentle smile on my face thinking, "Yeah, just one more chapter before I go do something useful." This is actually a really lovely little book! It is charming and whimsical and full of polite conversation and intriguing creatures, just as a children's classic should be. As Dorothy and her friends wend their merry way towards self-knowledge and magical wish fulfillment, they meet with all kinds of nice people, bizarre monsters and tricky situations, but you know that everything's going to be okay in the end because Baum said so. That said, it's not all sunshine and roses in the Land of Oz, oh no... What Baum omits by way of serious peril for his leading characters, he makes up for with the macabre ends he concocts for the naughty beasts that threaten them. Yes, the Wicked Witch of the West is destroyed with a humble bucket of water (if that's a spoiler... well, if you don't know it now you never will) - but everything else is thrown off a cliff, has its neck broken, is beheaded or chopped in half by the Tin Man's axe. All the kinds of deaths that make me shudder and put down my lunch for a moment. But then everybody skips on and is very jolly to have survived another menace, so that's okay.Needless to say, the book was a wonderful little read, despite the fact that I had "We're off to see the wizard" stuck in my head THE WHOLE TIME. Baum's imaginary world was a delight to explore, twisting old fairytale cliches into something new and unique (like the mischievous Winged Monkeys and their three wishes taking the place of the traditional genie, for example), and Dorothy's well-mannered sweetness was like a soothing balm for my summer-holiday-brat-frazzled nerves. My edition is a smart little 'Great Reads' hardback, with cute cartoony line drawings that don't look AT ALL like the movie characters (much to their credit), which I found really rounded off the reading experience. Roll on book 2 - I think I'm hooked!
    • 5/5
      This is one of those reviews I feel ridiculous writing because who doesn't know the story of The Wizard of Oz? Dorothy is a child living in a one-room house in Kansas with her aunt, uncle and dog. A tornado rips through the plains but before Dorothy and her little dog can make it to the hole in the floor the tiny house is swooped up in the tornado's vortex and they are whisked off to a fantasy land. Upon landing they inadvertently kill a wicked witch (of the East). The townspeople munchkins are overjoyed but all Dorothy wants to do is go home. So, the munchkins give her the witch's shoes and send her along a yellow brick road. At the end of the road is a wizard who supposedly can help her get back to Kansas. Along her journey she meets some oddball characters (a tin woodsman, a cowardly lion, and a brainless scarecrow). Unbeknownst to them, they are being watched on their journey. The deceased witch's sister (Wicked Witch of the West) wants the shoes given to Dorothy. To read The Wizard of Oz as an adult is 100% entertainment. I had fun taking note of how many times the brains-needing Scarecrow did something exceedingly smart or the Cowardly Lion acted inherently brave or the no-heart Tin Man felt true compassion. Other amusements: the group discussing heart disease.
    • 4/5
      Classic work in which a young girl explores a strange land, seeking a way to get home. The original book has been largely superseded by the 1939 film in the public consciousness (to the point that this reprinting, like most, drops the full title, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz"), but is well worth reading in the original. Dorothy is much tougher and braver in the original than the squealy Judy Garland portrayal, and the work is a good beginning to the lesser-known later Oz books, which are less world-building and more undirected explosions of imagination. Unfortunately the pacing suffers a little from the long, anticlimactic journey to Glinda's in the last half of the book, a reminder that sometimes the books were less about the plot and more about just being odd travelogues... but that's the fun part of any journey, after all! (Interestingly, despite being described in the author's introduction as "a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heartaches and nightmares are left out", the book contains a surprising amount of beheadings. Cultural shift?)
    • 5/5
      For Christmas, I ordered an mp3 player (Library of Classics) that was pre-loaded with 100 works of classic literature in an audio format. Each work is in the public domain and is read by amateurs, so the quality of the presentation is hit or miss. The Wizard of Oz is an iconic motion picture, from a children’s book written by L. Frank Baum. Everyone should be familiar with the movie, and while the book is obviously very similar, it contains quite a bit of extra material as well as a few major differences. For example, in the book, Dorothy does not wear ruby red slippers, but silver shoes instead.This book is an excellent beginner book for young readers, though there is perhaps more violence than some may consider appropriate for very young children. Highly recommended.
    • 3/5
      Think I read bits of this as a kid, but not the whole thing. Nice. The audio voices are rather odd, but bearable. Won't be re-reading it again all that soon, and not sure I liked it enough to justify reading the rest of the series. Hmmm.
    • 4/5
      The first time I read this book, I was 25 years old, and picked up the annotated Centennial Edition from the library. I really enjoyed it, but it must have been just too much information to retain because when I listened to it with my kids this week, there was a shocking number of details that I didn't recall at all.

      The thing that stood out the most to me when I read it the first time was the Scarecrow's wise and witty sayings, one of which we had posted up on our refrigerator for years (I can't remember the exact quote; something about how most people who have brains don't use them).

      I didn't pick out much of anything of note from the Scarecrow this time around, but I did notice 46 beheadings (although two of those weren't fatal) and one neck-wringing.

      L. Frank Baum's introduction to the novel talked about how it was intended to be just a fun story for children without all of the scary moralizing of older fairy tales. From this I suppose I can conclude that Baum thought beheadings were really awesome things that kids would love.

      And actually, he might have been right. My kids adored this story. I could tell by how much my four-year-old repeated back to me (and how quietly he sat listening without making annoying sounds or punching his sister) that he was really engrossed in the story. My nearly-nine-year-old daughter loved the story despite feeling annoyed at the treatment of the majority of the predatory animals in the story.

      So, that makes me wonder...why did we like it? I think it was just because the story was so magical. Plus, I think the idea of being carried to a foreign land in a flying house, being praised for something you didn't intend to do (and then expected to repeat the feat), and then spending the rest of the story trying to get back home again must really appeal to kids. Or at least to my kids. It gives me hope that even if I'm as drab and undemonstrative as Em and Henry, my kids will still want to come home.
    • 5/5
      A treasure of American Literature.
    • 4/5
      This book is such a great version of the classic by L. Frank Baum.The story is condensed but is done so in a way that simply makes it more manageable for children.The shortened version is great with the added pictures as drawn by Charles Santore. This added element of fantastic drawings (interpreted by Charles from the original classic) provides reluctant readers with more incentive to read through this story.I recommend avoiding the expectation that this book will follow the movie version. There are detailed scenes drawn from the original book that were not featured in the movie which may disappoint some readers.Notable examples would be in the scene where the tin woodsman is said to have used his axe to kill 40 wolves and the scarecrow snapped the necks of 40 crows which were all sent by the wicked witch.This book would be suitable for children aged 8-12. It is heavily text-based but is broken up by wonderful illustrations.
    • 3/5
      I enjoyed reading about the characters that have become so familiar to us.
    • 4/5
      Lots of fun! I the book has some differences to the show. Baum is a clever writer
    • 5/5
      great audio book; and what an amazing narrator, he made voice and changes the tone to achieve a beautiful experience while listening.
    • 5/5
      This book is the kind of book you could simply start reading again right after you've finished.
    • 4/5
      I found it difficult to read this without the ghosts of the MGM musical and Gregory Maguire's [book: Wicked] and [book: Son of a Witch] lurking over my shoulder.Definitely liked it more than the musical -- no offense to Judy Garland. Dorothy's comrades are much more interesting in the original, especially little Toto.***August 2008 selection of the GB Book Club.***
    • 4/5
      It was fun to read this in French, though I found the illustrations somewhat off-putting. (I can't even find the proper adjective to describe them -- my wife suggests the word triangular, though we agree it doesn't quite capture the bizarreness.) I also thought asking the reader to wear green-tinted glasses during the City of Oz sections was a little much. Still a good way to practice my French.
    • 3/5
      A children’s novel written by L. Frank Baum is more familiar to me as the movie so it was one time where the book didn’t feel right compared to the movie. It was first made into film in 1939. We all know the story. Dorothy, a young girl, living with her aunt and uncle in Kansas is swept away in a tornado and finds herself in a land populated by witches, north, south, east and west and all sorts of different characters and animals. The author was an US born author. He was sheltered, shy and had a heart problem. He spent time with imaginary friends and reading books. He married a ‘women’s rights’ person and was considered a progressive thinking. His book has a female hero. The movie does follow the book fairly well. The shoes were silver and not red. There is considerable violence with the woodman chopping heads off here and there but unlike the movie I actually was able to finish the book. The movie was always too scary. I was born in the same town as Judy Garland and she played Dorothy of course, so that’s my claim to fame.
    • 5/5
      Oh my gosh! I loved this movie as a kid and I loved the book as a child too, both for different reasons. Reading this book again as an adult, it brought back wonderful memories of my Grandma and I reading this together when I was a child. How could any reader, young or old, not like this book?! This wonderful classic takes the reader on a wonderful journey to far away lands full of magic and wonder. With a wonderful plot and such classically wonderful characters this is an instant love for any reader. The wonder of the plot of being swept away to a far away land and trying to find a way home is great for the imagination. The characters only add to that love and wonder. With characters like Scarecrow, Tin Man, Lion, Dorothy, Toto, the witches (good and bad), and the wizard there is a character for each and every reader to love and to dislike. The pictures are perfect in this book as is the writing. It's a book so fantastic and magical any reader gets lost in the pages and before they know it, the end of the book is upon them. A great book to create great memories with!!5/5 Stars!!
    • 5/5
      The Wizard of Oz, popular abbreviation for the originally titled The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, is a children's novel written by L. Frank Baum originally published in 1900. The story follows the adventures of a girl named Dorothy in the Land of Oz. Thanks in part to the 1939 movie based on the book, it has become entrenched in American popular culture and led to Baum writing thirteen more Oz books.
    • 5/5
      This is a fantastic children’s book that follows Dorothy and friends through Oz. Although, I never read it as a child (I wish I had shared this with my daughter), I enjoyed it. It is nothing like the classic motion picture (let alone who knows what the new Disney movie has in store). If one is a fan of the film, they may be disappointed by the differences. Haven’t seen the film in its entirety in years, I was able to enjoy the book for what it was. The illustrations by Michael Sieben were, at first, a little disturbing but adds some pizzazz to the story. I see that Sieben is somewhat popular and his illustrations remind me of the wood block prints we used to do in school.
    • 4/5
      I really loved this book. It's a classic. Although, at times, I felt the movie was probably a bit better, but still a must-read. I thought the book was much more childlike than the movie and was much more in the perspective of a child.
    • 4/5
      I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book, especially in those subtle pieces that the movie didn't/couldn't hold:

      "...for when he [The Scarecrow] found himself alone in his room he stood stupidly in one spot, just within the doorway, to wait till morning. It would not rest him to lie down, and he could not close his eyes; so he remained all night staring at a little spider which was weaving its web in a corner of the room, just as if it were not one of the most wonderful rooms in the world."

      Didn't expect that I would be sucked into reading the series, but I've already downloaded the second book.

      I love the somewhat haphazard feeling of the book; the fact that the wicked witch is not such a central character as in the movie; and the clever prose.

    • 5/5
      I really loved this little book. It's very simplistically written, but it's very wholesome and funny. There are a fair few differences between the book and the 1939 adaptation, so it was enjoyable reading it as I didn't know everything that happened.

      The Tin Woodman knew very well he had no heart, and therefore he took great care never to be cruel or unkind to anything. “You people with hearts,' he said once, 'have something to guide you, and need never do wrong; but I have no heart, and so I must be very careful.”

      This was an important line to me. It made me consider how we might take our beliefs for granted. If we always believe we are right, we simply trust what we are doing. Whereas, the Tin Woodman without a heart, doesn't trust himself to be good, so he is always purposeful with his actions. And I believe this can pertain to many areas of life.

      “It is such an uncomfortable feeling to know one is a fool.”
    • 3/5
      I made the mistake of growing up watching the film and not reading the book until adulthood. They are VERY different. This novel is a lot more graphic and dark. Not at all like the yellow brick road we skipped down with Judy Garland.
    • 3/5
      Maybe it was because I never read the book when I was young, or maybe I simply don't have an innate appreciation for fantasy literature, but this book--like the movie--is just weird to me. My girls (whom I read the book aloud to) thought that it was pretty good; they have yet to see the movie. All that said, I'm glad to have read it--simply because it makes me feel more culturally literate. : )
    • 5/5
      The wizard of OZ, Exceptional, best book ever, i also found the book more exciting than the movie, there is no better way to pass time with your daughter than reading this book, I have always been a fan of the film, only recently I read the book for the first time. Due to starting work in a library, I have read many books over the Christmas period why so many reviews from me so soon, I find it hard to understand anybody that does not love the Wizard of OZ theme, for me personally it is the greatest story of them all. Five star forever!
    • 4/5
      Warning: this review may spoil the ending of the book for you. Then again, you've probably already seen the movie, haven't you?"The (Wonderful) Wizard of Oz" is in fact a great deal unlike the 1939 film. There are far more characters in Oz, and far less time is spent on the farm in Kansas. I was not surprised to read in the Puffin edition's supplementary material at the end of the book that it was originally banned because its simplistic writing style did not make it seem like quality children's literature. Cornelia Funke states in her introduction to this edition that readers are luckier if they get to make the journey through the book as a child, and I would concur. As an adult, I found it a hard slog to get interested in the book until halfway through, when the characters depart from the Emerald City to complete their task. The chapters are short, the wording is not very descriptive beyond reference to lots of different colours and the way clothing looks, and the action in much of the book seems not to have much storytelling purpose other than to delay the ending a little bit longer. The book reads like a convoluted series of Grimms' fairy tales where the moral is delayed almost entirely to the end, in spite of a few hints throughout here and there. Reference to this moral is not subtle, either. Baum apparently loved to tell children stories, and his novel reads much like a story that he was spinning off stream-of-consciousness, with back-stories thrown in for additional characters here and there just to keep the audience entertained for a wee bit longer. Overall, I felt that the story lacked the sophisticated emotional arcs of tales like "Charlotte's Web" or the linguistic skill of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." I have to admit, though, that I was won over by the ending, for in the movie, it never satisfied me that Dorothy had the power to go home all along, but "had to find out for herself." In the book, it is more clear that if Dorothy had never come to Oz, the Scarecrow would never have got his brains, the Tin Man would never have got his heart, and the Cowardly Lion would never have got his courage, and thus her trials served a purpose. That's a moral that I can get behind; I just wish it had been as wonderful to get to the end of the literary yellow brick road as it was to reach the end of the celluloid one.
    • 4/5
      Dorothy lives in Kansas,USA.But one day a cyclone blows her house to a country called Oz.There were Dorothy and her dog in it.