Boys in particular love Oz, thereby trumping the old line that boys won’t read stories about girls. Fortunately we carry the books on our shelves now. Look in our reference section today and you will find few Oz first editions. As Lanes tells it, “By 1930, the Children’s Room of the New York Public Library had removed the entire Oz series from its shelves, and other library and school systems followed suit.” It is true. Most notably, my very own children’s room. To be blunt, libraries weren’t always pleased with the books. Fun Fact: Guess what libraries of the early 20th century loathed? That’s right. And when a book had a lot of sequels, it was technically a series. Later there would come sequel after sequel. With no intentions of continuing the story, it is self-contained. This does explain why the first book is such a perfect little book, though. His fans insisted and four years later out came The Marvelous Land of Oz. He was ready to move on to other tales.” So much for that plan. Again responsible for the cost of the plates, Baum and Denslow insured the inclusion of twenty-four color plates and countless textual decorations in an alternating color scheme, making it one of the most elaborately embellished children’s books in American publishing history.”Īccording to Selma Lanes in Through the Looking Glass, “Despite The Wizard’s immediate success, Baum gave no thought to sequels. The immediate novelty of the book was its pictures even today the first edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is an impressive piece of bookmaking. The new book, a full-length fairy tale, again illustrated by Denslow, matched the great success of Father Goose, His Book. In American Writers for Children, 1900-1960, Michael Patrick Hearn writes that, “On, Baum’s forty-fourth birthday, his most enduring work, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, was printed. Frank Baum did not come to write the books of Oz until he was well into his middle age. I can’t include absolutely everything, so consider this a taster’s sampling. With that in mind, here is a quick overview of the title and its impact on America at this point. Indeed, there are whole websites, blogs, and societies out there solely dedicated to its existence. Oz is too overwhelming for a single post.

Wizard of oz series books