For me this is one of those unusual cases where the film was better than the book, and that is saying something as I'm really not a fan of musicals.

I should imagine that there can be few people who have never seen the film version and so the sotry is quite familiar. Obviously there are a few differences though. First up was the fact that Baum pitches us pretty much right into the cyclone making nomention of the farmhands, the circus man or the neighbour with a grudge against Dorothy and Toto. The fact that these characters in the film then reappear as the main characters Dorothy encounters in Oz leads us to the conclusion that Dorothy's adventures are just a dream. This is not the case in Baum's novel which has the effect of making his story all the more fantastical but with no explanation of what or where Oz is.

Some of the other differences are relatively minor such as short episodes missed out of the screenplay and the fact that Dorothy's shoes in the book are silver rather than ruby as in the film. More significant, from the point of view of the structure of the story, is the fact that Dorothy and her companions make a journey to the south before she is able to return to Kansas. It is here that the meet Glinda, who is the Witch of the South in the book - the Witch of the North being and old woman, who reveals to Dorothy that her Silver Shoes could have taken her home right from the beginning if she had only tapped the heels together three times. It is almost tempting to credit Baum with using an archetype found in many stories (most famously the Alchemist by Paulo Coelho) in which the hero goes on a long journey only to discover that what was sought was on the doorstep at the beginning of the quest. As a reader though I would have been quite happy for Dorothy to return home in the balloon as she does in the film.

Throughout the book I found the writing to be quite flat. I got little sense of characterisation and, whereas it can often be disappointing to find that the screen characters are not as they were written, I felt that the film did a wonderful job with rather poor material. Furthermore I felt that the compassion of the Tin Woodcutter, the bravery of the Lion and the brains of the Scarecrow were rather too obviously signpostedvirtually as soon as these characters entered the story.

I left this book on the Bookcrossing shelf.