The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

by L. Frank Baum

This book is dedicated to my good friend and partner, my wife, L.F.B.

Contents

Introduction
Chapter I. The Cyclone
Chapter II. The Council with the Munchkins
Chapter III. How Dorothy Saved the Scarecrow
Chapter IV. The Road Through the Forest
Chapter V. The Rescue of the Tin Woodman
Chapter VI. The Cowardly Lion
Chapter VII. The Journey to the Great Oz
Chapter VIII. The Deadly Poppy Field
Chapter IX. The Queen of the Field Mice
Chapter X. The Guardian of the Gates
Chapter XI. The Emerald City of Oz
Chapter XII. The Search for the Wicked Witch
Chapter XIII. The Rescue
Chapter XIV. The Winged Monkeys
Chapter XV. The Discovery of Oz, the Terrible
Chapter XVI. The Magic Art of the Great Humbug
Chapter XVII. How the Balloon Was Launched
Chapter XVIII. Away to the South
Chapter XIX. Attacked by the Fighting Trees
Chapter XX. The Dainty China Country
Chapter XXI. The Lion Becomes the King of Beasts
Chapter XXII. The Country of the Quadlings
Chapter XXIII. Glinda the Good Witch Grants Dorothy's Wish
Chapter XXIV. Home Again

Introduction

Old stories like folklore, legends, myths, and fairy tales have been part of childhood for a very long time. That's because every healthy kid naturally loves stories that are exciting, amazing, and clearly make-believe. The fairies with wings from old story collections have brought more joy to children's hearts than almost anything else people have made.

But those old-fashioned fairy tales have been told for so many generations that they now feel like "history" in a children's library. It's time for a new kind of "wonder tale"—one without the usual genies, dwarfs, and fairies, and without all the scary, gory events writers used to add to teach a lesson through fear. Today, kids already learn about right and wrong in school. So modern children just want to be entertained by their wonder tales, without any unpleasant parts.

With that idea in mind, I wrote "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" purely to entertain today's children. I wanted it to be a fairy tale for modern times—one that keeps all the wonder and joy, but leaves out the heartache and nightmares.

L. Frank Baum
Chicago, April, 1900

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Chapter I

The Cyclone

Dorothy lived out on the wide, flat plains of Kansas, called the prairie, with Uncle Henry, a farmer, and Aunt Em, his wife. Their house was small because the wood to build it had to be hauled by wagon from many miles away. It had four walls, a floor, and a roof, all making just one room. Inside was a rusty stove for cooking, a cupboard for dishes, a table, a few chairs, and the beds. Uncle Henry and Aunt Em slept in a big bed in one corner, and Dorothy had a small bed in another corner.

There was no attic and no basement—except for a small pit dug into the ground called a cyclone cellar. A cyclone is a powerful, spinning windstorm strong enough to destroy buildings. If one came, the family could hide in this cellar. To reach it, they had to open a trap door in the middle of the floor and climb down a ladder into the small, dark space.

When Dorothy stood in the doorway and looked around, all she could see was the gray prairie stretching out in every direction. There wasn't a single tree or house to break up the flat land that reached all the way to the sky. The sun had baked the plowed dirt into a cracked gray crust. Even the grass wasn't green—the sun had scorched the tips of the tall blades until they matched the gray of everything else. The house had once been painted, but the sun had blistered the paint and the rain had washed it away, so now the house looked just as dull and gray as its surroundings.

When Aunt Em first moved there, she had been a young, pretty woman. But the sun and wind had changed her too. They had taken the sparkle out of her eyes, leaving them a dull gray. They had taken the red from her cheeks and lips, turning them gray as well. She had grown thin and worn out, and she never smiled anymore. When Dorothy—who had lost her parents and come to live with her aunt and uncle—first arrived, her laughter had startled Aunt Em so much that she would gasp and clutch her chest every time she heard the little girl's cheerful voice. Even now, Aunt Em still looked at Dorothy with surprise, wondering how she could find anything to laugh about.

Uncle Henry never laughed either. He worked hard from morning to night and didn't know what having fun felt like. He, too, was gray—from his long beard down to his worn-out boots—and he always looked serious and stern. He rarely spoke.

It was Toto who made Dorothy laugh and kept her from turning as gray as everything around her. Toto wasn't gray at all—he was a small black dog with long, silky fur and twinkling black eyes on either side of his funny little nose. Toto loved to play all day long, and Dorothy played with him and loved him very much.

But today, they weren't playing. Uncle Henry sat on the porch step, staring nervously at the sky, which looked even grayer than usual. Dorothy stood in the doorway holding Toto, looking up at the sky too. Aunt Em was inside washing dishes.

From far off in the north, they heard the wind moaning softly, and Uncle Henry and Dorothy watched the tall grass bend in waves as the storm approached. Then they heard a sharp whistling sound coming from the south. When they turned to look that way, they saw the grass rippling from that direction too.

Suddenly, Uncle Henry jumped to his feet.

"There's a cyclone coming, Em!" he shouted to his wife. "I'll go check on the animals." Then he ran toward the sheds where the cows and horses were kept.

Aunt Em dropped what she was doing and rushed to the door. One look at the sky told her how close the danger was.

"Quick, Dorothy!" she cried. "Run for the cellar!"

Toto leaped out of Dorothy's arms and hid under the bed, and Dorothy went after him. Aunt Em, terrified, threw open the trap door in the floor and climbed down the ladder into the dark little cellar. Dorothy finally caught Toto and turned to follow her aunt. But halfway across the room, the wind let out a huge shriek, and the house shook so violently that Dorothy lost her balance and fell to the floor.

Then something strange happened.

The house spun around two or three times and slowly lifted off the ground, rising into the air. Dorothy felt like she was floating up in a hot air balloon.

The winds from the north and south crashed together right where the house stood, making it the exact center of the cyclone. Usually, the air stays calm in the middle of a cyclone. But the powerful wind pressing on all sides of the house pushed it higher and higher, until it reached the very top of the storm. There it stayed, carried for miles and miles, as easily as if it were nothing more than a floating feather.

It was very dark inside, and the wind howled terribly all around, but Dorothy found that the ride was actually pretty smooth. After the first few spins—and one scary moment when the house tilted sharply—she felt like she was being gently rocked, the way a baby is rocked in a cradle.

Toto didn't like it one bit. He ran around the room barking loudly, while Dorothy sat quietly on the floor, waiting to see what would happen next.

At one point, Toto got too close to the open trap door and fell in. At first, Dorothy thought she had lost him for good. But then she spotted one of his ears poking up through the hole—the strong air pressure was actually holding him up so he couldn't fall any farther. She crawled over, grabbed Toto by the ear, and pulled him back into the room. Then she shut the trap door tightly so nothing like that could happen again.

Hour after hour passed. Slowly, Dorothy's fear faded, though she felt very lonely, and the shrieking wind made her ears ache. At first, she had worried that she might get hurt badly when the house finally landed. But as time passed with nothing terrible happening, she stopped worrying and decided to stay calm and wait to see what would happen. Eventually, she crawled across the swaying floor to her bed and lay down, with Toto curling up beside her.

Even with the house swaying and the wind howling, Dorothy soon closed her eyes and fell asleep.

Chapter II

The Council with the Munchkins

She woke up suddenly from a hard jolt—so sudden and strong that if she hadn't been lying on her soft bed, she might have gotten hurt. The bump made her gasp, and she wondered what had happened. Toto pressed his cold little nose against her face and whimpered. Dorothy sat up and realized the house wasn't moving anymore. It wasn't dark either—bright sunlight was streaming through the window, filling the little room with light. She jumped out of bed, and with Toto right behind her, ran to open the door.

The little girl gasped in amazement, staring around with wide eyes at the wonderful sights before her.

The cyclone had set the house down very gently—gently for a cyclone, anyway—in the middle of a place of amazing beauty. Patches of green grass stretched all around, dotted with tall trees full of rich, juicy fruit. Banks of bright, colorful flowers grew everywhere, and birds with rare, dazzling feathers sang and fluttered among the trees and bushes. Not far away, a small stream rushed and sparkled between green banks, making a happy, bubbling sound—music to a little girl who had spent so long on the dry, gray prairie.

While Dorothy stood there, taking in the strange and beautiful scene, she noticed a group of the oddest-looking people she had ever seen walking toward her. They weren't as tall as the grown-ups she was used to, but they weren't tiny either. In fact, they were about the same height as Dorothy, even though she was a fairly tall child for her age—and these people, judging by their looks, were much older than her.

Three were men, and one was a woman, and they were all dressed strangely. They wore round hats that rose to a small point about a foot above their heads, with little bells along the brims that jingled sweetly whenever they moved. The men's hats were blue, while the woman's hat was white. She also wore a white dress that fell in soft folds from her shoulders, sprinkled with tiny stars that sparkled like diamonds in the sunlight. The men wore blue outfits that matched their hats, along with shiny boots that had a thick blue cuff at the top. Dorothy guessed the men were about as old as Uncle Henry, since two of them had beards. But the little woman looked much older—her face was covered in wrinkles, her hair was nearly white, and she walked with a stiff, careful step.

When these people got close to the house where Dorothy stood in the doorway, they stopped and whispered to each other, as if they were too nervous to come any closer. But the little old woman walked right up to Dorothy, bowed low, and said in a sweet voice:

"Welcome, great Sorceress, to the land of the Munchkins. We are so thankful to you for killing the Wicked Witch of the East and setting our people free from her control."

Dorothy listened to this, completely confused. What did the little woman mean, calling her a sorceress—someone who does magic—and saying she had killed the Wicked Witch of the East? Dorothy was just an innocent, gentle little girl who had been swept far from home by a cyclone. She had never killed anything in her whole life.

But the little