The OZ series of books and movies.

One of the first book and movie series that I ever loved was The Wizard of OZ series. I remember reading the first book "The Wonderful Wizard of OZ" when I was about six years old. I then saw the 1939 movie starring Judy Garland, and would watch it every year that it came on. After that I read some of the following books in the series, and highly enjoyed those too. I saw the Disney OZ movie titled "Return to OZ" and instantly fell in love with that movie too.

I now own both the 1939 Wizard of OZ movie and Return to OZ on dvd. I also have all of the OZ books on my Kindle. L.Frank Baum is one of my all time favorite children's/fantasy authors and ranks up there with Rowling,Tolkien, Lewis, Pullman and Lewis Carol to name a few. I look forward to OZ the Great and Powerful coming out in theaters this March. I also look forward to the animated film Dorothy of OZ which is suppose to come out this year. I was wondering if there were any other OZ fans here?

Who is looking forward to the new Oz movie?

I am! It truly looks fantastic.

I just discovered a Oz story by L. Frank Baum that I have never seen before. It is a short story called The Woggle Bug Book. This is surprising because I thought I had seen them all. It really isn't an Oz story, it is just about an Oz character.

I remember staying at a family friend's home in Washington, D.C. for a week as a child. To my delight they owned All of the Oz books, a long shelf-full. Needless to say by the end of the week I had blissfully worked my way through the whole collection, spending as much time exploring Oz as the monuments and museums of the capitol

By the way I have seen Oz the Great and Powerful both on the regular screen and in 3D, and like both equally for it is the theme, "Goodness not Greatness" that makes the film meaningful.

I rather enjoyed 'Oz, The Great and Powerful'. Because of that I bought and I watched the 1939 film for the first time in probably over 15 years a few weeks back and enjoyed that, too (and more so than the modern film as 'tis a classic!) and then I rewatched Disney's 'Return To Oz', which I also rather liked!

Now, as an 'adult', are the books still worth reading? Is there quite a bit of writing to get your teeth into or are they very brief?

Did anyone else see The Witches of Oz (2011). I had problems understanding it. What did the Wizard give Tik Tok in the scene at the end of the movie? And if Nick was just a man and not the Tin Man, why did Dorothy say she knew him?

Sir Cabbage said:

Now, as an 'adult', are the books still worth reading? Is there quite a bit of writing to get your teeth into or are they very brief?

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Oh, you can read all of the original Oz books by Baum very quickly. You can find them all online for free or you can listen to the audio version through LibriVox. The Books are written for pre-teen.

Although I've seen "The Wizard of Oz" many times, and thoroughly enjoyed it, in my opinion Judy Garland is a superb Dorothy and Margaret Hamilton is equally ideal as the Wicked Witch of the West. Indeed, all the cast perform their roles admirably.

I have never read any of the books other than a quick scan through. This is something I shall have to rectify at some point.

I have also seen and enjoyed "Return to Oz". However, I have not yet seen the stage version, "Wicked", which concerns the origins of the witches of Oz. Has anyone here seen this? If so, what did you think of it?

Soldier of Aslan and I have been having a discussion about the OZ books written after Baum's death. And the question of what was canonical for the OZ books came up. In CON to be canonical you just say the original 7 books written by Lewis. But for OZ books it is harder to define. Some will just say that the original 14 Baum OZ books are canon. Others will say the "famous forty" make up the canonical books of OZ. For those of who aren't familiar with the "famous forty", they include Baum's original Wizard of OZ plus the next 39 OZ books published by Reilly and Lee from 1904-1963. Those books include the 13 other Baum books, 19 by Ruth Plumly Thompson, 3 by John R. Neill, 2 by Jack Snow, and one each by Rachel Cosgrove Payes and by Eloise Jarvis McGraw and her daughter. Ruth Plumly Thompson, John R. Neill, Jack Snow, Rachel Cosgrove Payes, and Eloise Jarvis McGraw and her daughter are usually referred to as the Royal Historians of OZ by Reilly and Lee. Other books that are considered canon are other fairy books written by Baum where the main protagonists latter show up in Baum's subsequent OZ books. These would include The Sea Fairies (1911) and Sky Island (1912), which feature Trot and Captain Bill before they came to live in OZ. Last to be added to the cannon by some are those OZ books written after 1963 by any of the Royal Historians threw other publishers. But with the recent revival of OZ books, are there any recent books that could be called canonical or should they all be referred to as non-canonical?

There are some other OZ books that could be considered canon. First, there are the OZ books written by Roger S. Baum, who is a great grand son of L Frank Baum. Second, the Baum Family Trust also selected Sherwood Smith to be a new "Royal Historian" of Oz and to provide new additions to the Oz canon. My problem with these books is that they do not keep the continuing plot of the other OZ books. The other canon OZ books have Dorothy eventually comes to live in OZ, while in these books she always lives in Kansas, and only visits OZ when called upon. This may seem a small matter, but if Dorothy never comes to live in OZ then all the books after book 5 has never happened. And a canon book can't radically go against other cannon books. You could say Rogers S. Baum's books are just prequels, but that doesn't work the Smith books because Dorothy isn't even even alive any more. The protagonists in those books are the descendants of Dorothy. Dorothy never could have returned to Kansas after living in OZ in a canon book, because the magic of OZ is what keeps here forever young. It is clearly said if Dorothy ever returned to OZ that she would instantly age to the time Kansas is now. That would mean she would age several decades instantly. Most non-canon OZ books you will notice leave out Dorothy and Ozma. They usually want to present an alternative OZ. Even the recent Disney Wizard movie would be hard to put in canon, because in all the plans for sequels to the movie, there is no talk of bringing Dorothy into play.

Agreed. You cannot do OZ without Dorothy and Ozma.
Interestingly most people forget the 'Little Wizard Stories' , so Baum actually had 15 books (but I think 'Stories' could easily fit anywhere in the canon)
The 'Famous 40' is what I consider cannon, even though most books (well maybe starting with 'Oz Planing') start to have a serious dip in continuity and good writing ( or at least that's the reputation they have).

There is nothing wrong with non-canon books and movies. The Wicked books and plays were quite popular. The recent Syfy channel Oz miniseries (Tin Man, and The Witches of Oz) were non-canon. And even the books written by Baum himself have major plot problems. This is the result that Baum when he wrote the original Wizard of Oz never thought of doing sequels and he even tried to stop the series after 6 books. But he was forced to restart the series because they were the only thing he was able to make money off. He went bankrupt on his movie production enterprise. One of the major plot problems were the backgrounds of the Wizard and Ozma. The Wizard is first seen as a rather corrupt person in the second book when Ozma's background story is told. He is said to have sold Ozma into captivity to a witch. But the Wizard was such a popular character in the first book that Baum brings him back in 4th book to stay. So Baum has to gloss over his bad behavior, and saying the witch had kidnapped Ozma before the Wizard came. The second problem Ozma herself. A clear story of her background took a very long time to develop and is still not clear. Another problem is the ages of the girls (similar to figuring out the ages of the children in CON). Dorothy seems to be maybe 8 in the first book and Ozma around 11. Now of course Dorothy ages a few years until she moves to Oz to live in book six. She is now about 11, but Ozma ages also to about 14. This is a problem because no one ages in Oz. Though never said so in the books it is guessed that the aging process wasn't frozen till book 6 because Ozma loved Dorothy so much that she never wanted her to grow up or that Auntie Em and Uncle Henry would die, so when she sealed OZ from the rest of the world, she also froze everyone's age.

Having read Oz as a child, I have fond memories of the wonder I felt as I read and of the lush illustrations in the L.F. Baum books; but revisiting them as an adult (I have them on my e-reader) I don't think they have the staying power of Chronicles of Narnia or works by E.Nesbit, Mary de Morgan, or Eleanor Farjeon. As was mentioned by Timmy there are plotholes and logical disconnects and style ruts that I find distracting as an adult reader, but when I was a child I was simply engrossed by the fantasy and magic and adventure.

Benisse is right in the stories by L Frank Baum are not riveting and they are worse by Thompson. The thing about Oz books are the characters. They are so funny and the girls are so sweet. It is the whole idea of a land like Oz where you would be just giggling all day long. Just the thought of a scarecrow man and a cowardly lion makes you want to laugh.

I agree! Some of the characters are so memorable, like Tip before he became Ozma, the Scarecrow who ruled Oz, the witch that liked to collect heads to change her looks (though she was a villain)... and I loved the imaginative settings of the stories. I don't remember the title but I remember one book that involved an underwater city protected by a huge dome that kept out the water... The image of that beautiful city has stayed with me ever since I was a child.

That's 'Glinda of Oz' , Baum's last book in the series.
Timmy, I'll disagree with you on the non-cannon books. While I did like 'Wicked' the musical, the books are very adult, and rather cynical. 'Son of a Witch' left a bad taste in my mouth.
Most other non-cannon works borrow too heavily from the 1939 film, to the point of annoyance. The only non-cannon Oz books I've enjoyed are those by Eric Shanower, though he at times *thinks of how to word this in a TDL acceptable way* likes to make allusions to his lifestyle. Nothing in the more crude way Wicked uses, but enough to raise an eyebrow (this of course goes over the head of younger readers). He does capture J. R. Neil's illustration style perfectly however.

There are a number of writers like Eric Shanower that write in the same spirit as the canonical books. They use the same characters and plot situations as where the famous forty left off. Of course they have to be careful to only use characters that are in public domain. They thus avoid characters and story lines created by Thompson just to be safe. Mark Ellery Haas got in trouble for using a Thompson character. Interestingly for those Thompson books still protected, the rights are held by the L. Frank Baum Family Trust and not the heirs of Thompson. I haven't read any of Shanower's work but I know his illustrations. I feel they have a Japanese style to them. Scott Dickerson is another writer that writes in the spirit of the canon books.

I finally read the original book a few weeks ago. It was quite a quick read, but I thought it was nicely written. Some of the imagery was a bit surprising!