I’m never quite sure what to expect when I am familiar with a movie before I read the book it was adapted from. I have seen the movie version of the Wizard of Oz many times — I grew up with it, so I was interested in how the book agreed and disagreed with that filmic translation. The movie sets viewers up to recognize similar elements in Oz as we do in Dorothy’s life in Kansas — farm hands become the scarecrow, the tinman, and the cowardly lion, and other characters change form as well. For example, Professor Marvel, the fraud in Kansas, becomes the Wizard of Oz, the essential fraud in Oz. With that, viewers are set up to see Dorothy’s experience as a dream. I expected a similar setup in the novel, which obviously did not occur. However, certain elements created a similar, if less obvious, effect. Everything is gray in Dorothy’s Kansas, even Aunt Em and Uncle Henry — the technicolor that follows, the “lovely patches of green” (18) and “banks of gorgeous flowers” (18) feel vibrant but dreamlike in comparison. Furthermore, the relative calmness of the house in the eye of the storm that rocks the house gently, “like a baby in a cradle” (12) allows for Dorothy to fall “fast asleep” (13). The fact that readers observe Dorothy actually falling asleep in the trancelike rocking surrounded by wailing winds hints at the land of Oz being a part of a dream as well — I’m curious to see how the eventual endings will differ.