The Wizard of Oz....

....illustrated by Graham Rawle: spooky, quirky, fabulous!


A gift from Paul. He wasn't sure if I'd like the artwork,
and I LOVE it. The L. Frank Baum Oz series is one of
my favorites works of fiction -- children's or otherwise.
When the boys were young (well, they're still young,
but you know what I mean) I read them all fifteen +
books. I didn't read these books as a child, so they were new
to all three of us. They are fantastical, political, witty,
entertaining, funny, touching. One Halloween I sewed
R. a scarecrow costume, and another year we built
a Jack Pumpkinhead and the boys brought it
to school for show-and-tell. (Many of their classmates
were a bit baffled by this life-sized wooden creature with
a paper-mache pumpkin-head making an appearance
in their classroom. ) One of my favorite scenes occurs in,
I believe, The Land of Oz, where Dorothy & Co. wander into
a village where everything is made out of bread products,
and Toto is hungry and eats a child. Ouch!