The Wizard of Oz

10-12 min read
20 pages

The Wizard of Oz, retold for reading aloud. A cyclone, a road of yellow brick, and three companions who already have what they are going to ask for.

Dorothy lived in the middle of the great grey prairie in Kansas, in a small house with her Uncle Henry and her Aunt Em and a little black dog called Toto. The grass was grey, the house was grey, and Toto was not grey, which is why Dorothy loved him.

One afternoon the wind began to wail, the grass bent flat, and Uncle Henry shouted that it was a cyclone. Aunt Em went down into the storm cellar. Dorothy ran after Toto, who had hidden under the bed, and before she could reach the trapdoor the house rose up into the air.

The house whirled round and round and then went steadily along, and Dorothy sat on the floor and waited. After a long while she and Toto fell asleep in the middle of the sky. In the morning the house came down with a bump.

Outside was a country of green grass and tall trees and a stream that sparkled, and Dorothy had never seen anything like it. A small crowd came towards her, three little men and a very old woman, and the woman bowed and thanked her for killing the Wicked Witch of the East.

The house had come down on the witch, and all that was left of her were two feet in silver shoes. «We are the Munchkins,» said the old woman, «and I am the Witch of the North, and I am good.» She gave Dorothy the silver shoes and a kiss on the forehead that nobody would dare to hurt.

Dorothy asked how to get back to Kansas. Nobody knew. The Witch of the North said the only one who might was the great Wizard of Oz, who lived in the Emerald City, and that the road to it was paved with yellow brick and could not be missed.

She had not gone far when she came to a cornfield with a Scarecrow on a pole, who winked at her. She lifted him down. He said he had nothing in his head but straw, and that he would come with her and ask the Wizard for brains. «You'll get them,» said Dorothy, who was not sure.

In the wood they found a man made of tin, rusted still in the middle of a swing of his axe. Dorothy oiled his joints, and he moved his jaw and said that he had been standing there a year. He had no heart, he said, and he would come with them and ask for one.

Then something roared, and a great Lion sprang into the road and knocked the Scarecrow spinning. He was going for Toto when Dorothy slapped him on the nose and told him he ought to be ashamed. The Lion sat down and said she was quite right, and that he was a coward, and might he come and ask for courage.

So the four of them went along the yellow brick road together, and the Lion was afraid of everything, and the Tin Woodman wept when he trod on a beetle and had to be oiled, and the Scarecrow had all the ideas — which none of them noticed at the time.

They crossed a ditch on the Lion's back, and a field of scarlet poppies whose smell puts anything living to sleep. Dorothy and Toto and the Lion fell down in it, and the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, who do not breathe, carried them out.

The Emerald City was green from the gates to the towers, and everyone who entered had to wear spectacles locked on at the back, which the Guardian of the Gates said was to save their eyes. The Wizard saw them one at a time, and he looked different to each of them — a great head, a lovely lady, a ball of fire.

He would grant nothing, he said, until they had killed the Wicked Witch of the West. They did not want to. They went anyway, because there was nothing else to do.

The Witch of the West had one eye, and it was as powerful as a telescope. She saw them coming a long way off and sent wolves, and crows, and bees, and the Woodman and the Scarecrow dealt with every one. Then she used the Golden Cap and called the Winged Monkeys, and the Monkeys had to obey.

The Monkeys dropped the Tin Woodman on rocks, pulled the straw out of the Scarecrow, and carried Dorothy and the Lion to the Witch's castle. Dorothy was set to scrub the floors, and the Witch looked at the silver shoes every day and could not take them while Dorothy was awake.

At last the Witch tripped her with an invisible bar and stole one shoe. Dorothy was so angry that she caught up a bucket of water and threw it over her — and the Witch melted away like brown sugar, which surprised Dorothy more than anything that had happened yet.

They mended the Scarecrow with fresh straw, hammered the Tin Woodman straight, and went back to the Emerald City. And there Toto knocked over a screen in the corner, and behind it stood a small old man with a bald head and a wrinkled face, who said, in a very small voice, «I am the Great Oz.»

He was from Omaha. He had come by balloon and been taken for a wizard, and had kept it up ever since because he was afraid of the witches. He gave the Scarecrow bran and pins for brains, the Tin Woodman a silk heart stuffed with sawdust, and the Lion a drink out of a green bottle.

They all felt different at once, which was the whole trick: each of them had been clever and kind and brave the entire way, and had simply not been able to believe it without something to hold.

The Wizard's balloon went up without Dorothy, who had run after Toto again. In the end it was Glinda, the Good Witch of the South, who told her the silver shoes could carry her anywhere in three steps — and had been able to from the first day. Dorothy said goodbye to all three of them, knocked her heels together, and was standing on the Kansas prairie with Aunt Em running towards her.

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Text source: Plot by L. Frank Baum (1900), public domain. The text was written anew for Marytale and shortened for reading aloud — it is not a reprint of anyone else's version.

The Wizard of Oz characters

Dorothy: A girl from a grey Kansas farm who wants one thing the whole way through: to go home. She is the only character who never asks the Wizard for anything about herself.
Toto: Her small black dog. He starts the story by hiding under the bed and ends it by knocking over the screen that hides the Wizard.
The Scarecrow: Asks for brains and has all the ideas on the road. Every plan that saves the party is his, which nobody notices until the end.
The Tin Woodman: Asks for a heart and weeps when he steps on a beetle — then rusts, and has to be oiled. He is the kindest of them before he is given anything.
The Cowardly Lion: Asks for courage and does every frightening thing anyway: carries them over the ditch, faces the Kalidahs, walks into the Witch's country.
The Wizard of Oz: A small old man from Omaha who arrived by balloon and was taken for a wizard. He appears differently to each visitor — a great head, a lovely lady, a ball of fire — because it is all a trick.
The Wicked Witch of the West: Has one eye as powerful as a telescope, commands wolves, crows, bees and the Winged Monkeys, and melts in water.
Glinda, the Good Witch of the South: Tells Dorothy at the very end that the silver shoes could have carried her home on the first day.
The Good Witch of the North: Gives Dorothy the silver shoes and a kiss on the forehead that keeps her from harm.
The Munchkins: The small people in blue whose country the house lands in, and who are freed by the fall of it.
The Winged Monkeys: Bound to obey whoever holds the Golden Cap, three times. They are not evil — they are owned.

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The Wizard of Oz

The Wizard of Oz characters

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