The Wizard of Oz

The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The tone of this book reminded me of A Wrinkle in Time.

"She was awakened by a shock, so sudden and severe that if Dorothy had not been lying on  soft bed she might have been hurt. As it was, the jar made her catch her breath and wonder what had happened..." (p. 14)

The movie, which set my expectations for the novel, varies a good bit in the details. The book is a charming tale full of moral lessons mixed nicely into a classically structured quest tale. The various trials the intrepid quartet faces is different in the book than the movie and more fairy tale-like. For example, they battle 40 wolves then 40 crows which seemed very much like a detail from the Brothers Grimm.

This book is one of my Classics Club titles and counts toward the 2016 Back to the Classics challenge as a "20th century classic" (originally published in 1900)