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<\/p>\n In The Road to Oz<\/em>, Krull tells the life story of Baum<\/strong><\/a> from his pampered (“some might say spoiled”) childhood to his adult life, rife with a wide variety of careers, Krull portraying Baum as the “go-getter” he was. As someone attracted to risky enterprises (“{b}ad luck, bad planning, too much ambition, too much risk . . .”), he threw himself into everything from chicken-breeding to a life on the stage to sales to owning his own store to editing a newspaper…and much more. At one point, he founded his own theatre company, writing his own dramas:<\/p>\n One night, as Hamlet, Frank accidentally moved a plank. Suddenly the actor playing a ghost vanished below. The audience howled, thinking this was deliberate, and made them enact the absurd maneuver over and over. <\/p>\n (Not exactly the glamorous life he had envisioned.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Krull goes on to emphasize Baum’s love for his family (at age twenty-six, he married his true love, Maud Gage—daughter of Matilda Joslyn Gage<\/strong><\/a>, a famous women’s suffrage and radical feminist activist—and devoted himself to their four sons) and his telling of tales to his children and their friends in the evenings:<\/p>\n Frank also took note of what his listeners didn’t<\/em> like. Romances between princes and princesses made them itch. No lecturing. They hated being talked down to. Nothing cute, or what he called “goody-goody.” Long descriptions of nature put them to sleep, as did fairy tales where girls were always being rescued.<\/p>\n Gradually, he discovered what worked best—taking his audience to a new universe, full of marvels and details.<\/p>\n By now, he was telling stories to fourteen, fifteen children at a time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n (To the point about his children not wanting lectures and the rescue of girls*: Indeed, as Kirkus<\/em> stated in their review, “{this profile} leaves readers understanding just how groundbreaking The Wonderful Wizard of Oz<\/em> was, as an adventure story with both a female protagonist and no overwhelming Moral Lesson.”)<\/p>\n Krull explains how Baum “threw himself into creating original, modern American fairy tales,” his first title being Adventures in Phunnyland<\/em>, and eventually “pouring his powers of imagination into one big story. It was called ‘The Emerald City’—a sort of green version of Chicago’s White City.”<\/p>\n And, as the aforementioned SLJ<\/em> review points out, it is with great sympathy that Krull describes Baum’s failures in his business affairs and his eventual bankruptcy. <\/p>\n Hawkes not only brings Baum to life with his vivid colors, expert composition, and great animation and emotion, but he also occasionally incorporates sketches in emerald of Oz characters into the text, finding connections from Baum’s life to some of the Oz characters — such as, the Scarecrow on the book’s second spread, which includes mention of “{t}hose scarecrows out in the farms and fields around Rose Lawn {the Baum family estate}—at night he dreamed they were chasing him.”<\/p>\n If you’re a Hawkes fan, as I am, don’t miss his work in this one. <\/p>\n Thanks to Random House for the images. <\/p>\n * Let’s be clear that the books hardly serve as a feminist manifesto: In The Land of Oz<\/strong><\/em><\/a> (book two), General Jinjur<\/strong><\/a> may be leading her all-girl Army of Revolt, which plans to overthrow the Scarecrow, but the General tells Tip it’s because “the Emerald City has been ruled by men long enough, for one reason…Moreover, the City glitters with beautiful gems, which might far better be used for rings, bracelets and necklaces; and there is enough money in the King’s treasury to buy every girl in our Army a dozen new gowns.” I mean, I like a nice gown, too, but come on…<\/p>\n Illustrations from THE ROAD TO OZ. Text copyright \u00a9 2008 Kathleen Krull. Look at this moment of loveliness above, brought to us by illustrator Kevin Hawkes. I am such a fan of his work, so I’m pleased to share a couple of illustrations from his most recent illustrated title, what Publishers Weekly calls a “cheeky yet informative biography,” The Road to Oz: Twists, Turns, Bumps, and Triumphs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonfiction","category-picture-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Look at this moment of loveliness above, brought to us by illustrator Kevin Hawkes<\/strong><\/a>. I am such a fan of his work, so I’m pleased to share a couple of illustrations from his most recent illustrated title, what Publishers Weekly<\/em> calls a “cheeky yet informative biography,” The Road to Oz: Twists, Turns, Bumps, and Triumphs in the Life of L. Frank Baum<\/strong><\/em><\/a> (Knopf Books for Young Readers, September ’08), written by the very talented author of a whole slew, to be precise, of award-winning biographies for children, Kathleen Krull<\/strong><\/a>. And, as someone who has a big honkin’ space in her heart devoted to the Oz characters (translated: as a child, I was obsessed with the books and film adaptation)—even though I’d agree with Trull in her Storyteller’s Note at the close of this book that “the quality of {Baum’s} books was uneven”—I love that stunning opening illustration, in particular. School Library Journal<\/em> wrote about Hawkes’ work in this book, “Hawkes’s merry paintings of the author and his characters invoke the magic of Oz within the great author’s real-world setting.” Merry, indeed. <\/p>\n
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Illustrations copyright \u00a9 2008 Kevin Hawkes. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, New York.<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"