Introduction

    Folklore,
           legends,
         myths and fairy tales
              have followed childhood
                   through the ages,
           for every healthy youngster
            has a wholesome
                   and instinctive love
                 for stories fantastic,
         marvelous and manifestly unreal.

    The winged fairies of Grimm
           and Andersen
          have brought more happiness
               to childish hearts
             than all other human creations.

  Yet the old time
      fairy tale,
           having served for generations,
         may now be classed as
           "historical"
            in the children's library;
        for the time
            has come
                   for a series
                       of newer "wonder tales"
             in which the stereotyped genie,
           dwarf and fairy are eliminated,
         together with all the horrible
               and blood-curdling incidents
              devised by their authors
                  to point a fearsome moral
                       to each tale.

    Modern education includes morality;
        therefore the modern child
            seeks only entertainment
                   in its wonder tales
                       and gladly
                dispenses with
                       all disagreeable incident.

    Having this thought in mind,
           the story of
         "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz"
            was written solely
              to please children of today.

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

    L.
        Frank Baum

    Chicago,
           April,
         1900.
 
  1. The Cyclone

    Dorothy lived
           in the midst
               of the great Kansas prairies,
           with Uncle Henry,
         who was a farmer,
           and Aunt Em,
         who was the farmer's wife.

    Their house was small,
           for the lumber
              to build it
            had to be
                  carried by wagon many miles.

    There were four walls,
           a floor and a roof,
         which made one room;
        and this room
              contained a rusty looking cookstove,
           a cupboard for the dishes,
         a table,
           three or four chairs,
         and the beds.

    Uncle Henry and Aunt Em
        had a big bed
               in one corner,
           and Dorothy a little bed
               in another corner.

    There was no garret
           at all,
         and no cellar
          --except a small hole
               dug in the ground,
           called a cyclone cellar,
         where the family could go
             in case one of
                   those great whirlwinds arose,
           mighty enough
              to crush any
                  building in its path.

    It was
          reached by a trap door
               in the middle
                   of the floor,
           from which a ladder
              led down into the small,
         dark hole.

    When Dorothy
        stood in the doorway and
              looked around,
           she could see nothing
             but the great gray prairie
                   on every side.

    Not a tree
          nor a house
        broke the broad sweep
               of flat country
         that reached
               to the edge
                   of the sky
               in all directions.

    The sun
        had baked the plowed
               land into a gray mass,
           with little cracks
               running through it.

    Even the grass
        was not green,
           for the sun
            had burned the tops
                   of the long blades
             until they
                were the same gray color
                      to be seen everywhere.

    Once the house
        had been painted,
           but the sun
               blistered the paint
                   and the rains
                 washed it away,
         and now the house
            was as dull and gray
                   as everything else.

    When Aunt Em
        came there to live
         she was a young,
           pretty wife.

    The sun and wind
        had changed her,
           too.

    They had
          taken the sparkle
               from her eyes and
              left them a sober gray;
        they had
              taken the red
                   from her cheeks and lips,
           and they were gray also.

    She was thin and gaunt,
           and never smiled now.

    When Dorothy,
           who was an orphan,
         first came to her,
           Aunt Em
            had been so startled
                   by the child's laughter
             that she
                would scream
                      and press her hand
                           upon her heart
             whenever Dorothy's merry voice
                   reached her ears;
        and she still
               looked at the little girl
                   with wonder