The Wonderful Wizard of Oz : The Kansas Centennial Edition

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0700611517 ISBN 13: 9780700611515

Publisher: University Press of Kansas, 1999

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz remains one of the world's most beloved and widely read books. Throughout a century of remarkable change, the popularity of L. Frank Baum's classic tale has endured and grown, embraced by generation after generation of children and the young at heart. To honor the centennial of its publication in 1900, the University Press of Kansas is pleased to present this special anniversary edition that combines Baum's original text with the contributions of two renowned artists: book illustrator Michael McCurdy and writer Ray Bradbury. Distinguished by McCurdy's beguiling illustrations and Bradbury's provocative meditation on the Land of Oz, our book also embraces and even celebrates the oft-kidded connection between Baum's wondrous story and the state of Kansas. With good humor and appreciation, then, we are very proud to welcome both Dorothy and Toto back home.

From the Back Cover:

"Michael McCurdy is a marvelous artist whose wondrous images offer new shadings for this re-paving of a road well-taken and a harvest of characters well-met."--Ray Bradbury

About the Author:

L. Frank Baum (1856-1919) is one of America's great literary treasures. From his first published book for children, Mother Goose in Prose (1897), until his last, Glinda of Oz (1920), he produced a rich array of fairy tales, fantasy, and whimsy for the reading pleasure of millions of Americans, young and old alike. In all, he produced fourteen full-length Oz books. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, however, remains the most popular and enduring of all. One of the best-known and most-read books in the world, it is still considered "the quintessential American fairy tale."

Ray Bradbury, one of America's most popular and widely respected authors, has played a major role in putting fantasy and science fiction on the map of genres worthy of our close attention. His own books--classics like The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451, The Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine, and Something Wicked This Way Comes--have sold millions of copies in English and in translation around the world. He lives in Los Angeles.

Michael McCurdy's richly evocative scratchboard drawings and wood engravings grace more than 160 books for children and adults alike. These books have been acclaimed by the New York Times Book Review, Washington Post Book World, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Parenting, among others. They include American Fairy Tales, American Tall Tales, Tarzan, The Bone Man: A Native American Modoc Tale, The Sailor's Alphabet, Escape from Slavery: The Boyhood of Frederick Douglass in His Own Words, Iron Horses, and Trapped by the Ice: Shackleton's Amazing Antarctic Adventure. Two of the volumes that he illustrated--Howard Norman's The Owl Scatterer and Ann Whitford Paul's The Seasons Sewn--were chosen by the New York Times for the list of Ten Best Illustrated Children's Books of the Year. A native of New York City, McCurdy lives in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.