Oz and Beyond
The Fantasy World of L. Frank Baum

An excellent overview of the Baum's extended fairy tale universe. I'm just starting to read more about Baum and I had no idea that, after writing several different fairy tales with their own lands, he decided to incorporate them into his Oz tales and have these lands border Oz itself. I would have l......more

A quick read. Somehow I was expecting something more dense, with impenetrable prose and bristling with footnotes, but this book turns out to be not that academic. It's more of an affectionate summary of the plots of all of Baum's fantasy books (not just the Oz ones). A couple of times the author rai......more

This was an interesting read. I haven't explored the world of Oz extensively since I was a kid, although when I was 10-11 I read the first part of the series (I seemed to glom instinctively onto only the portion written by Baum himself) extensively and repeatedly. Arguably Oz, together with Narnia,......more

I guess all I can say is that it was a biography. This book did not get my mind running, and wanting to continue. It was good though. L. Frank Baum's life was pretty interesting. Two thirds of this book was all about the books he wrote. This book explains Baum's life but as you can tell by two third......more

A good overview and linking together of Baum's OZ and other children's books. The book itself is mostly a synopsis and discussion of Baum's books with recommendations on which books are strongest/weakest and why. The bibliography alone is great for helping find research books on 19th and 20th centur......more