Product Description

LARGE PAPERBACK edition. For over a hundred years, L. Frank Baum's classic fairy stories about the land of Oz have been delighting children and parents alike. Now, for the first time, the entire Oz series is available in this single, great-value, edition! This unique '15 books in 1' edition of L. Frank Baum's original "Oz" series contains the following complete works: "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz", "The Marvelous Land of Oz", "Ozma of Oz", "Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz", "The Road to Oz", "The Emerald City of Oz", "The Patchwork Girl Of Oz", "Little Wizard Stories of Oz", "Tik-Tok of Oz", "The Scarecrow Of Oz", "Rinkitink In Oz", "The Lost Princess Of Oz", "The Tin Woodman Of Oz", "The Magic of Oz", and "Glinda Of Oz". From the publisher: we're releasing this large format paperback edition of our complete Oz series in response to our customers, who told us they would like an edition with a larger text size than our standard format.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #426690 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 828 pages

From the Publisher
Amazon.com combines reviews for the paperback and hardcover editions. You can choose between paperback and hardcover, both are available.

To switch between them, see the blue box labelled 'also available in', at the top of the page under the cover photo.

NEW: December '06: We now also have an oversize large edition available for you. It has bigger text than our standard edition. ISBN code is 1905921004, type this into Amazon and you'll find it.

From the Author
L. Frank Baum's foreword to "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz":

Folklore, legends, myths and fairy tales have followed childhood through the ages, for every healthy youngster has a wholesome and instinctive love for stories fantastic, marvelous and manifestly unreal. The winged fairies of Grimm and Andersen have brought more happiness to childish hearts than all other human creations.

Yet the old time fairy tale, having served for generations, may now be classed as "historical" in the children's library; for the time has come for a series of newer "wonder tales" in which the stereotyped genie, dwarf and fairy are eliminated, together with all the horrible and blood-curdling incidents devised by their authors to point a fearsome moral to each tale. Modern education includes morality; therefore the modern child seeks only entertainment in its wonder tales and gladly dispenses with all disagreeable incident.

Having this thought in mind, the story of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" was written solely to please children of today. It aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heartaches and nightmares are left out.

L. Frank Baum Chicago, April, 1900.

From the Inside Flap
An essential read for fans of fantasy fiction stories. Written in the vein of Harry Potter with captivating plots, interesting characters, witches and wizards, yet with an aspiration for normal kids to dream of becoming heroes. The story revolves around a normal girl who doesnt actually posses any magical powers, yet with her innocence, will power, warm heart, friendly nature manages to win against huge odds and overcome the most difficult situations. A good compilation of stories for children as well as adults to read.

Customer Reviews

Watch out for 600+ pages of small print!
I like the idea of having all 15 books in one combined book. It seemed like it would make for some fun bed time story reading. However, the small print stopped me in my tracks. I don't feel the book is necessarily of poor quality, however, it is a paper back book, something that seems odd for such a weighty novel. My advice, consider whether or not you feel capable of reading 600+ pages (with no illustrations) of 2-column small font print before making this purchase.

Look For Border's Edition
I give this book 5 stars because it is "OZ". I purchased something similar, but much much better from Border's , two years ago. Available from Amazon, look for 'The OZ Chronicles'. Volume 1 and Volume 2 contain all of Baum's Oz books. Green Leather Hardcovers, great size print. Volume 3 contains Baum's other books and stories. Incredible find and value.

Hardback makes a nice gift
So, what do you get? (This is a description of the hardcover edition)

It's a nice solid book, well bound, quite thick (700 plus pages) that makes a good gift. The cover is colorful, and it looks like it'll last for years, even with a bit of mishandling from kids.

You get all of the L. Frank Baum "Oz" stories, except for a few really obscure short stories that were published in the newspapers, where the Wogglebug from "Oz" visits the USA.

The text is printed in two columns, but it's not hard to read - from looking at 'search-inside-the-book', it looks like the hardback is a bit easier to read than the paperback. There aren't any illustrations though.

For a kid who liked the first Oz book and wants to read the others, it's a lot cheaper than buying them all separately!

On balance, recommended, but it looks like it's worth getting the hardcover rather than the paperback.