The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

I needed another book to read aloud to the kids and this one was available. It's been around since 1900! It was very interesting to see all the differences from the well-known movie. The first difference that strikes you is that the Ruby Slippers are actually Silver Shoes. And nobody ever says “Follow the yellow brick road!” Instead, “the road of yellow brick” is mentioned. There's more interesting back-stories to the origins of the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman. It's kind of cool and a little gruesome getting into the Tin Woodman's back story – it's much more in keeping with fairy tales of old. But it's dealt with so matter-of-factly that my two kids didn't blink an eye at any of it. They enjoyed the story and looked forward to every night's reading from it. As for me, it was fun actually reading the source material to such an old, well-loved movie.