Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz by L. Frank Baum

I didn't find it disturbing as a kid, I don't think, and my son didn't either as far as I could tell. Insignificance is the best they can hope for beneath the surface of the Earth. My favorite part this time though was a small one as the adventuring party climbs a subterranean mountain, they look out on a strange sea and strange sky. The best our heroes can hope for is indifference, such as they receive from the Braided Man.

The lands they travel through have little respite for them: vegetable people who cannot feel sympathy, a valley of invisible bears who can slaughter you at any moment, the wooden gargoyles who don't speak a word, the dragonettes who would eat you if only they could. Unlike other Oz books, where our hero makes friends as they travel, Dorothy never really does the people who are with her from the beginning (Eureka the Kitten, her cousin's cousin Zeb, Jim the Cab-Horse, and later, the Wizard) are the only people who journey with her. It's a dark story, something the Shanower & Young comic adaptation brought out to good success. Neill, and thus the book was brought to life in my imagination. But the book is reproduced at its original size, with all of its interior illustrations intact, meaning that this was one of my best examples of the artistry of John R. The Dover editions aren't facsimiles to the extent that the Books of Wonder ones are-they are trade paperbacks, they have no end papers, the color plates are in black and white.

I don't think it's a coincidence that it was just one of two that I owned as a Dover edition. I recollect that this was one of my favorite Oz books as a kid. I read this aloud to my three-year-old son.

Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz by L. Frank Baum