Picked up at the Strathcona Farmer's Market from the free book exchange shelf.

From back cover:

"The Scarecrow's life had been so very short. He'd only been made the day before yesterday. So, of course, what happened in the world before that time was all unknown to him...

As new and fresh - one may feel as if a Munchkin farmer had just painted his eyes on - will be THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ to anyone reading it for the first time. First published in 1900, staged for the next year by its author L. Frank Baum and later made into a perennially popular film, the plot of this modern American fairy tale is by now well-known. A little girl from Kansas is hurtled by a cyclone to a marvelous land of challenge and adventure - there to meet a Cowardly Lion, a Tin Woodsman, a lively Scarecrow, witches good and evil, and other fascinating creatures including, ultimately, the awesome Wizard himself. But however familiar the story's outline, Braum's gay and imaginative writing, his subtle insights into his somehow very human animated beings are perpetually refreshing, and his original text - which led by popular demand to thirteen sequels - is likely to endure for generations to come"

Also, a child has written on the inside cover:

"to John
From Stewart

roses are purple Johnees are pink poke a dotted I Love you becauses you are beat. love Stuart"

I had never read this book as a child. Reading it as an adult, I found it enjoyable, but not as much as say "Charlotte's Web" or "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe". It is a good story though. I enjoyed how each character found in themselves (without even realizing it) what they were searching for from the Great Wizard of Oz. There were enough differences from the movie so that the story was still new, but not so different that either the book or the movie would annoy you for being so different. One noticeable difference was the colour of the shoes. In the book they are silver and I wonder why the change?

Read as part of The New Authors A-Z Read & Release Challenge
Read as part of The SIY (Set It Yourself) Reading Challenge continues #10 (Oct - Dec/09)

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Mailed as a surprise RABCK

15.12. The book arrived by mail today. Thank you for fulfilling my wish, Heaven150!

Thanks so much for sending me this, hetku77! I will make sure to pass it on once I read it :)

Have a nice journey!