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Add Baum's perspective on nonviolence
The 40 Oz books had a significant impact on their young middle class readers who read them in English, Spanish, Russian, French, German, Romanian, Latin, Hebrew, or Arabic editions. Novelist Gore Vidal recalls:
The 40 Oz books had a significant impact on their young middle class readers who read them in English, Spanish, Russian, French, German, Romanian, Latin, Hebrew, or Arabic editions. Novelist Gore Vidal recalls:
{{quotebox|Like most Americans my age (with access to books) I spent a good deal of my youth in Baum's Land of Oz. I have a precise, tactile memory of the first Oz book that came into my hands. It was the original 1910 edition of ''The Emerald City of Oz.'' I still remember the look and the feel of those dark blue covers, the evocative smell of dust and old ink. I also remember that I could not stop reading and rereading the book. But 'reading' is not the right word. In some mysterious way, I was translating myself to Oz, a place which I was to inhabit for many years .... With The Emerald City, I became addicted to reading."<ref>Quoted in , Nicholas Von Hoffman, "Flimflam Land. ''Civilization,'' Feb/Mar2000, Vol. 7, Issue 1 </ref>}}
{{quotebox|Like most Americans my age (with access to books) I spent a good deal of my youth in Baum's Land of Oz. I have a precise, tactile memory of the first Oz book that came into my hands. It was the original 1910 edition of ''The Emerald City of Oz.'' I still remember the look and the feel of those dark blue covers, the evocative smell of dust and old ink. I also remember that I could not stop reading and rereading the book. But 'reading' is not the right word. In some mysterious way, I was translating myself to Oz, a place which I was to inhabit for many years .... With The Emerald City, I became addicted to reading."<ref>Quoted in , Nicholas Von Hoffman, "Flimflam Land. ''Civilization,'' Feb/Mar2000, Vol. 7, Issue 1 </ref>}}
==Philosophical perspectives==
===Nonviolence===
Baum stated in the preface to ''Wizard of Oz'' that he wanted to eliminate "old time fairy tale... with all the horrible and blood-curdling incidents devised by their authors to point a fearsome moral to each tale." Indeed, in the first book, Dorothy only kills the two wicked witches by accident, even "clasping her hands together in dismay" when she sees that her house has fallen on the Wicked Witch of the East and saying, "I'm very sorry, indeed," when she accidentally melts the Wicked Witch of the West with a bucket of water.
Hardly a single villain is killed throughout the Oz books. In the sixth book, Baum even has Ozma (the ruler of Oz) say when faced with an invasion, "No one has the right to destroy any living creatures, however evil they may be, or to hurt them or make them unhappy. I will not fight, even to save my kingdom." Fortunately for Baum's protagonists, the enemies are defeated by the magic "Waters of Oblivion," which make them forget their plans of conquest. Such magical solutions often reappear; the villain in ''Lost Princess of Oz'' is transformed into a dove and the villains in ''Magic of Oz'' are rendered harmless by being made to forget their magical knowledge.
While such magic provides an easy solution within the Oz books, Baum opposed violence even when no other solution was possible. In the non-Oz book ''[http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/518 Enchanted Isle of Yew]'', Baum's protagonist refuses to execute a group of defeated bandits even after everyone has admitted that it would be just, instead presuming that their quick repentance is genuine. Within the context of the story, this strategy works: the bandits actually do repent and come to the protagonist's aid later in the book.
==List of official Oz books==
==List of official Oz books==
==External Links==
==External Links==
===Sources===
{{reflist}}
===Other===
* Archives of "[http://www.put.com/oz/ozdi/ The Ozzy Digest]," a discussion group for fans of the Oz series. Parts of it have been sorted into [http://pumperdink.org/BCF/ discussions about each individual book].
* Archives of "[http://www.put.com/oz/ozdi/ The Ozzy Digest]," a discussion group for fans of the Oz series. Parts of it have been sorted into [http://pumperdink.org/BCF/ discussions about each individual book].
* [http://www.ozclub.org/ Official website of the International Wizard of Oz Club]
* [http://www.ozclub.org/ Official website of the International Wizard of Oz Club]