Product Description

Dorothy and Toto are off again on an exciting adventure down The Road to Oz!

In order to help the lovable, ever-wandering Shaggy Man, Dorothy and Toto must journey through magical and mysterious lands. Soon the three are joined by a lost lad named Button-Bright and the beautiful young Polychromethe Rainbow's Daughter. With magic at work and danger about, these new friends must journey through cities of talking beasts, across the Deadly Desert into the Truth Pond, and through many other strange and incredible places before they can reach the Emerald City.

Along the way, Dorothy and her companions encounter a whole new assortment of fantastic and funny characters--the crafty King Dox of Foxville, the magical donkey King Kik-a-bray, the terrible bigheaded Scoodlers, and Johnny Dooit (who can do anything)--along with old friends Jack Pumpkinhead, Tik-tok, Billina, and, of course, the Tin Woodman, the Cowardly Lion, the Scarecrow, and the wonderful Wizard himself.

The Road to Oz is the fifth adventure in the magical Land of Oz. For the first time since the original 1909 edition, this stunning new facsimile edition illustrates Dorothy's fantastic adventures on different colors of paper reflecting where she and her friends are on the road to Oz. Featuring all of John R. Neill's 126 striking pen-and-ink drawings, this handsome deluxe edition is one to be treasured for years to come.

Afterword by Peter Glassman. This deluxe facsimile of the fifth Oz adventure reunites Dorothy and her friends for Princess Ozma's glorious birthday party. For the first time since the original 1909 edition, the 126 masterful illustrations are printed on colored papers, exactly as the author intended. A Books of Wonder Classic.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #68813 in Books
• Published on: 1991-04-24
• Released on: 1991-04-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 272 pages

From School Library Journal
Grade 1-4-By L. Frank Baum. Narrated by Flo Gibson.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Publisher
This book is in Electronic Paperback Format. If you view this book on any of the computer systems below, it will look like a book. Simple to run, no program to install. Just put the CD in your CDROM drive and start reading. The simple easy to use interface is child tested at pre-school levels.

Windows 3.11, Windows/95, Windows/98, OS/2 and MacIntosh and Linux with Windows Emulation.

Includes Quiet Vision's Dynamic Index. the abilty to build a index for any set of characters or words.

This Electronic Paperback is illustrated.

This Electronic Paperback is read aloud by an actor.

From the Inside Flap
Book 5 of L. Frank Baum's immortal OZ series, in whcih Dorothy and the Shaggy Man inexplicably find themselves in Oz, where they meet Polychrome, the abandoned daughter of the Rainbow, and a host of others on their way to Ozma's lavish birthday party.

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Customer Reviews

"That is really fine!" declared Santa Claus
If you read the thinking of serious Oz-types, you will hear that this is widely considered one of the weakest Oz books. I do see the point. There is not much of a plot. The plot is really only this: Dorothy gets lost, meets curious characters along the way, ends up in Oz after a series of fun and/or strange adventures. That's it. That's really all there is to it.

All the same, as a child it was my favorite book in the Oz series, and it still keeps a lot of its luster now when I reread it as an adult. I really enjoy Button-Bright and the Shaggy Man as counterpoints to Dorothy. I'm always happy to see Polychrome. The odd characters that they meet along the way are among the best. I used to have nightmares about the Scoodlers, and Johnny Dooit has stayed firmly in memory-- both as a memory and a role model. And Ozma's birthday party! Well, that made quite an impression on me. Particularly the chapter on "Important Arrivals" stayed in my mind (and eventually it sent me scrambling for other books by Baum that featured these lesser-known characters.)

In short, this may not be the strongest book in the series, but I have always found it one of the most enjoyable entries. Read it yourself and judge!

A bit boring compared to the other ones
This volume is a bit boring compared to the other volumes. No central struggle or triumph, just a series of minor adventures capped by a big birthday party. There are some decent lessons for children along the way, chiefly the perspective of beauty (in the eye of the beholder, of course), and a slightly more subtle example of love versus truth (one of the characters is 'truly' loved at the end, but only after he tells the truth and abandons the 'false' love of his charm).

The book appears to lose its narrative steam relatively quickly. The first few chapters have a traditional fairy-tale quality to the writing, but that fades after 3-4 chapters. The chapters in Foxville and Dunkiton have an interesting narrative thread (each society thinks itself the brightest and transforms the character conforming to their preconceptions of intelligence), but it stops by the time the group reaches the Musicker. After that point in time, few other themes emerge and Baum appears to be piecing one tiny adventure after another simply for the sake of getting to a birthday party.

One final note, maybe a bit over-thought for a children's tale. It seems as if all of Ozma's friends were made on adventures. Thus, the true inner circle at court is decided by merit rather than by nobility (all the 'nobles' are secondary characters at best during the birthday party). This is a good message for children, but it begs the question - will Oz be subject to entropy? As Ozma's adventures outside the palace slow down and friends slowly slip away, does the royal court revert back to nobility-based preference? As I mentioned, maybe this is over thinking it a bit

good for OZ fans...
I've been a fan of Frank Baum since I saw the MGM film The Wizard of Oz; I remember watching both the original film and the version with Japanese voice-overs (and if that's not hardcore, I don't know what is).
The Road to Oz was the beginning of a collection for me. I recommend it to those who truly loved Baum's creation, his wonder-world. There are new characters introduced in this book as well as old veterans (the Scarecrow and Tin Man are still present). Not quite the classic and nothing too terribly outstanding about it, The Road to Oz is still an entertaining fantasy story.