Swept away from their Kansas farm by a wild cyclone, Dorothy and her little dog, Toto, find themselves in a strange and magical place: the Land of Oz. A marvelous adventure begins as she makes new friends the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion. Together they set off down the Yellow Brick Road in search of the great and powerful Wizard of Oz. Can the Wizard send Dorothy and Toto safely home?
My thoughts:
I have loved the movie version of this for years. When I was in elementary school I read an abridged version of it that I think I recall getting at McDonald's (but that may or may not be true, I do know it was condensed. I still don't really understand the point of condensed or abridged books, the point of reading is to get the whole story.) Since we have watched the movie together I thought this would be a fun book to share with my children. It was what we listened to in the car this week.
One of the things we did while reading/listening was to pick out things that were changed from the book to movie. Some of the ones that come to mind right away are the color of the shoes (silver not red): how the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion get their brain, heart and courage: there were no workers on the farm who looked like the beings she met in OZ; no magician; and most of all it wasn't a dream like in the movie. My daughter at the end was the first to pick up on that, and asked why it wasn't a dream like on TV. I don't know the reason all of those things were changed. After seeing the movie so many times I am actual kind of partial to the way it was done there. I am guessing that red shoes were more distinctive on the screen but as for the other changes, I always took the fact that the characters had what they wanted all along but didn't realize it as a lesson to the reader/viewer to look inside of themselves for the things they think they lack. It was mostly the same message in the book, but the Wizard went further to convince the characters that it was so.
Most of the time I like the book version of a story more than the movie but in this case I think it is the opposite. Most likely because I am so familiar with the movie that the differences really hit me a lot harder and felt more jarring. I am not sure if we will be reading any of the other books in the series, Until I went to look up a picture for my review I had forgotten there were more books in the series. I guess time will tell.
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