Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz

At the turn of the twentieth century, a former traveling salesman, journalist, playwright, and actor named Lyman Frank Baum published a novel for children. Overnight, he became famous and his book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, became the classic American fairy tale. By popular demand, a host of delightful sequels followed, some even better than the book that started it all.

Dorothy and the Wizard are back in this sequel, and this time it all begins not with a cyclone but with a California earthquake. With her friends Zeb the farm boy, Eureka the kitten, and Jim the cab-horse, Dorothy plummets through a huge crack in the center of the earth. Later they are joined by the Wizard, carrying nine tiny piglets (each no bigger than a mouse). In one thrilling adventure after another, they pass through lands as fantastic as dreams, are stunned by incredible wonders, and make many a narrow escape from danger.

In the Land of the Mangaboos, people are vegetables, and the houses, made of glass, are grown, not built Eating a marvelous fruit in the Valley of Voe makes the inhabitants -- including ferocious bears -- invisible. And in the deathly silent land of the flying gargoyles, everything is made of wood.

The best treat of all comes when the intrepid travelers come back to the magical Land of Oz, where they are greeted by our old friends the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, the Cowardly Lion, and other familiar, strange, and amusing characters. Unexpected complications arise when Jim the cab-horse enters a race against a horse made of wood and when Eureka the kitten is accused of having eaten one of the piglets. Of course all comes right in the end, but not before the author's wonderful imagination, playful wit, and warm humor have touched our hearts and made us laugh, demonstrating once again why L. Frank Baum has been called "The American Lewis Carroll."

Reprinted here complete with all the enchanting original drawings by John R. Neill, Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz will remain a perennial favorite of the young and all wayfarers in the realm of the imagination.