Customer Reviews

The Complete Book of Oz

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Complete Book of Oz offers all of Frank L. Baum's "Oz" stories in one volume, but still leaves a lot to be desired. While the stories are all included, unedited, this over-sized volume omits all illustrations. If you're looking for the William Wallace Denslow-drawn illustrations from the original books, they're not here. Instead this volume packs in all the stories in a plain text-only format. The beautiful cover art is simply a tease for what you won't get in this volume.

The layout of the pages is somewhat sloppy too. With a strange margin width, pages are visually text heavy. The stories are laid out in sequential order with no breaks or images between. The only way to tell what book you're reading is to flip backwards to each book's table to contents, as the pages' headers do not reference the individual book titles.

The content is still the classic, top-notch fantasy fiction we've all come to know as children. For those that only know of Oz through the 1939 MGM film, you will be shocked and delighted to know that the history and people of this fictional land are much bigger and richer than the screen portrays. Further stories expand on themes introduced in the first book as well as bring in a variety of characters you've never heard of before.

This is a great value for someone that wants to read all the books without having to chase down the individual volumes. Children will NOT enjoy this format, since the inside resembles a college text book more than a storybook. I'd only suggest this particular edition for adult readers or for literary study.

I was rather disappointed in this item. The book is so large/heavy that it is not comfortable to hold and read and has been further condensed by taking out all of the illustrations (a major part of the stories charms IMO). A chapter in one of the single story books is now 1 page in this aptly named omnibus.

When I was 18, I went into an antique book store and discovered for the first time that L. Frank Baum had written further adventures in the Land of Oz. The bookseller proudly displayed a very expensive collection of all of these books. Needless to say, they were beyond a poor college student's budget. Ever since then I had been curious to find out what had become of Dorothy and the others, and this publication made that effort very easy.
The book has all of the stories by Baum, although other authors continued the adventures even further. The only shortfall of the book is its layout. The large pages and 2-3 page chapters make it seem more like reading a text book than reading a story.

L. Frank Baum's tales of Oz go a lot further than just the story we're all familiar with from the movie. He wrote 14 other books as well, and many are far more entertaning than that first one. Read and enjoy!

i bought this as a gift for an 11 year old that wanted all of the stories. great gift, but its really a huge book!

I ordered this book for my granddaughter, with memories of the wonderful stories of Oz beyond the Wizard of Oz. I expected it to be a reprinting of the original books, with black and white illustrations throughout. There were no illustrations! That is unacceptable!