Crazy for OZ

[Misfit]

And I'm not talking about Australia either. My mother was given many of the Wizard of OZ books when she was a young child in the 1930's. I inheritited them from her and still have most of them outside of one or two I loaned to my brother for his kids to read and never got them back

I loved the stories, Dorothy goes back to OZ and has lots of adventures with new folks, and the drawings are just fabulous. One of these days I'll have to scan a few and share.

Mom used to find collectible OZ things for me over the years, from dolls to plates and I've also picked up some gorgeous figurines over the years.

I think I might have a Barbie Dorothy and Ken as the tin woodman. Will have to hunt down later and report back

Here's a couple of covers I have.

[Misfit]

One more, I seem to have maxed at five images per post. Tik Tok was always a favorite of mine.

[LoveHistory]

Those are ni-ice!

[Michy]

Those are way cool. I like the 1920s Art Nouveau look of the Ozma book.

I think I've mentioned before that I loved, loved, loved Wizard of Oz as a kid (still do, in fact ). And so I got one or two of the "other" Oz books for Christmases and birthdays. For some reason, they just never clicked with me -- the storylines felt "weird", and in one of them (Scarecrow of Oz, I think) I was turned off because the artist drew Dorothy completely different than in the original. All of the books were lost in one of the moves somewhere along the way. I did buy myself another copy of the original WoO a few years ago, it's just like the original except in a much smaller format. And earlier this year I bought an audio dramatization done by the BBC -- really well done (I now want to get some of their others). It's such a wonderful story.

How many books do you have? In my current edition of the book, there is a section at the back that talks about all the things that have been inspired by the original book. Baum wrote 13 sequels, and after his death seven other writers wrote a total of 28. Lots of fodder for happy collecting!!

Would also love to see some of your figurines, if you have time one of these days.

[boswellbaxter]

Neat stuff! I admit that I never cared for the movie or the books, but I do have a Toto dog!

[Misfit]

I have eleven in my possession. Not all are written by Baum, there's an author named Ruth Plumly Thompson who continued the books. Here's a few more covers. I really really need to scan a few of the illustrations and share. They are just awesome, especially ones of the delightfully evil gnome king.

[Michy]

Those are gorgeous! There's a large antique mall in the Sacramento area, where one of the dealers' booths is filled with nothing but old Oz books -- hundreds of them.

According to my book, Ruth Plumly Thompson wrote 19 Oz books --more than Baum himself! Other authors were Frank J. Baum (son of L. Frank), John R. Neill (who also illustrated many of the books), Jack Snow, Rachel Cosgrove and Eloise McGraw/Lauren Wager. It looks like the last one was written in 1963.

Sounds like your Santa has enough to keep him busy for many Christmases .

[lvcabbie]

I have three Oz books from the 40s stashed away somewhere.
But, even better, I went to The Gutenberg Project and either downloaded the pdfs or bookmarked every Oz book there is!!
I didn't know about the follow-ups but will check them out.

[rockygirl]

I'm curious. What do you think of Wicked? I know some Oz fans who loved it and others who hated it.

Do you only collect the Baum books or do you collect related books like Wicked?

[Misfit]

[quote=""rockygirl""]I'm curious. What do you think of Wicked? I know some Oz fans who loved it and others who hated it.

Do you only collect the Baum books or do you collect related books like Wicked?[/quote]

I never read Wicked. I can't recall the specifics but something I saw in some of the reviews told me it probably wasn't for me.

If I spot something OZ related I will give it a look. I saw a Wizard of OZ cookbook once but it's still sitting on my WL. Don't cook much you see