Book and Movie Reports by Ed

Book report: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum It's hard to believe that the movie, The Wizard of Oz, started out as a children's book. The movie is so perfect an entity, and the source of so many quotes and images in our culture, that it seems like it must have been born fully formed. In fact, the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was published in 1900 (39 years before the movie), and was so popular that author L. Frank Baum (is Lyman really so bad a first name?) wrote 13 sequels – and his own stage musical version. Probably the first thing you have to do when reading this book is to unlearn the movie that you know by heart. For example, Miss Gulch, Professor Marvel, and the three farmhands aren't in the book at all. The Wicked Witch of the West is a very minor character, appearing in only one chapter, after the Wizard orders Dorothy to kill her – not bring back her broomstick. That might seem like losing a lot from the story, but it isn't. The book is fu