The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Refreshing in its simplicity and messages. I was genuinely taken aback by the occasional brutality: limbs casually getting chopped off, animals dying by the hundreds, perhaps as a punishment for choosing the wrong side, and characters facing terrible prospects but somehow remaining amazingly, contagiously, cheerful. That’s what fairy tales were like in the past, I suppose.
This is a story told many times which remains more than a century after it was written very strange and counter-intuitive. Reading it actually felt like a meta-trip to Kansas for me—“how can a fairy tale be so strange? From the pacing to the characters to everything! What would it feel like listening to this story as a child? What would have made the most impression on me? What would I need most, a heart, brains, courage, or a ticket back to Kansas? Actually, wait, wh-what happened? I’m 25 years old!”