Folk lore, legends, myths and fairy tales have followed childhood through the ages, for every healthy youngster has a wholesome and instinctive love for stories fantastic, marvelous and manifestly unreal. The winged fairies of Grimm and Andersen have brought more happiness to childish hearts than all other human creations.

Yet the old-time fairy tale, having served for generations, may now be classed as “historical” in the children’s library; for the time has come for a series of newer “wonder tales” in which the stereotyped genie, dwarf and fairy are eliminated, together with all the horrible and bloodcurdling incident devised by their authors to point a fearsome moral to each tale. Modern education includes morality; therefore the modern [4] child seeks only entertainment in its wonder-tales and gladly dispenses with all disagreeable incident.

Having this thought in mind, the story of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” was written solely to pleasure children of today. It aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heart-aches and nightmares are left out.

Chicago, April, 1900 L. Frank Baum

fairy tale: Märchen (fairy: Fee).youngster: junger Mensch, Kind.wholesome: gesund.manifestly (adv.): offensichtlich, augenscheinlich.to class: klassifizieren.wonder tale: märchenhafte Geschichte.stereotyped: stereotyp, gleichbleibend.genie: Geist, Kobold.to eliminate: beseitigen, entfernen.bloodcurdling: haarsträubend, grauenhaft.to devise: ausdenken, erfinden.to point a moral to a tale (arch.): eine Geschichte mit einer Moral versehen, ausstatten.fearsome: fürchterlich, schrecklich, gräßlich.to dispense with s.th.: auf etwas verzichten, etwas entbehren (können), ohne etwas auskommen.disagreeable: unangenehm, widerlich.solely (adv.): allein, ausschließlich.to pleasure s.o. (arch.): jdm. gefallen, jdn. erfreuen.to aspire to s.th.: nach etwas streben, trachten.heart-ache: Kummer, Sorge.nightmare: Alptraum, böser Traum.to leave s.th. out: etwas weg-, auslassen.

[5] Chapter I

The Cyclone

Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer’s wife. Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles. There were four walls, a floor and a roof, which made one room; and this room contained a rusty looking cooking stove, a cupboard for the dishes, a table, three or four chairs, and the beds. Uncle Henry and Aunt Em had a big bed in one corner, and Dorothy a little bed in another corner. There was no garret at all, and no cellar – except a small hole, dug in the ground, called a cyclone cellar, where the family could go in case one of those great whirlwinds arose, mighty enough to crush any building in its path. It was reached by a trap-door in the middle of the floor, from which a ladder led down into the small, dark hole.

When Dorothy stood in the doorway and looked around, she could see nothing but the great gray prairie on every side. Not a tree

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