The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - A Modern Fairy Tale - in 1900

I am so fascinated by Frank Baum's original introduction to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz for a couple of reasons......

In the second paragraph, Mr Baum asserts that, "Modern education includes morality; therefore the modern child seeks only entertainment in its wonder tales and gladly dispenses with all its disagreeable incident."

And the final statement, "It aspires to being a modernized fairy tale in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heartaches and nightmares are left out."

These are the sentences that have caught my attention.......

I shall discuss the latter one first......

I am now almost 40 years old, with 4 children of my own.  I can hardly say that the Scarecrow losing his straw was not alarming.  Similarly, the attack of the wolves, the attack of the bees, or, most especially, the attack of the flying monkeys.  And the one-eyed wicked witch - I had imagined her good eye, the one described as allowing her to see as through a telescope - as an actual telescoping eyeball....  I had nightmares.  Nightmares are normal.  Nightmares do not make one a homocidal psychopathic (or sociopathic) lunatic.  They just don't.

I cannot help but wonder what the story would be without the "disagreeable incident" - certainly not the classic that it is now.  I believe it would have been doomed to the same fate as other books from the period, written for children, written without moral, written only to entertain.  I know of none of those books - do you?  We all know of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

My second point of rumination, or the former sentence of the two mentioned, is that "modern" education - in the 1900s, included morality.  Wow.  It certainly does not anymore....  When morals were taught in school, writers decided that youth did not need moral tales anymore - they needed simply to be entertained, they sought "only entertainment", and we all know that anything a child seeks should be granted them....

Once the morals were out of the books, they gradually began leaving the schools.  Don't get me wrong, we have "anti-bullying" and "tolerance" rules, all the politically correct niceties are in play, but no real morals.  But we do not have ANY moral direction anymore.  What we do have, however, is lots and lots of (what I am now going to be calling forevermore) "written entertainment!"

My last thought (regarding this, for now) is this - really it is a question for some self-discovery for you, dear reader.

Think of the most exceedingly popular series of books being read, right now, by your children - or their peers.  Two series should do.

Now, answer the question, how many books are in each of those two series?  It's ok if you don't know specifically, guesstimate.

If you were to substitute book for book, or series for series, giving up the pop 'entertainment' and choosing a selection from the lists below, I can almost guarantee that your child would have more 'understanding' - I can guarantee they will have a somewhat improved vocabulary - AND, they are great stories!!  These books also have characters your child can love, hate, and relate to.

Here are a couple of recommendations in good literature to expand horizons and give cause for thought:

If you have a child in upper elementary school:

The Little House on the Prairie Series
Chronicles of Narnia Series
Kidnapped or Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (especially great for boys, those ones are!)

If you have a child in the middle grades:

Padraic Colum's Children's Homer, The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles (I would not necessarily have this one read unless said child loves mythology and also reads the Children's Homer - there is an INCREDIBLE opportunity for comparison of character between Jason and Odysseus - but if only one, definitely read about Odysseus, his character is beyond reproach)
Laddie
Little Britches: Father and I Were Ranchers
Carry On, Mr. Bowditch
The Hobbit
Journey to the Center of the Earth or The Mysterious Island
Johnny Tremain
Pyle's, or Green's, adaptations of Robin Hood and King Arthur Stories
Little Women series
Anne of Green Gables series
Horatio Hornblower series
Tales From Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb


If you have a child in high school:
(disclaimer, my eldest is only 13.  However, she has read the first 5 books in this list, and has enjoyed them all. )

Uncle Tom's Cabin
Tale of Two Cities
Animal Farm
The Ransom of Red Chief
Prode and Prejudice
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (this is a family read-aloud, but still provides good discussion)
The Strange Case of Dr Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde
Hobbit, and the Lord of the Rings series
Redwall series
The Invisible Man; The Time Machine; and, The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

There are so many, many more....   For a better list, should you be interested, please check out Institute For Excellence In Writing's list here.  They are experts on this stuff.  I am just a very new acquaintance of philology.

Happy Reading!