When a huge cyclone transports the orphan Dorothy and her little dog Toto from Kansas to the Land of Oz, she fears that she will never see Aunt Em and Uncle Henry ever again.

But she meets the Munchkins, and they tell her to follow the Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City where the Wonderful Wizard of Oz will grant any wish. On the way, she meets the brainless Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion. The four friends set off to seek their hearts’ desires, and in a series of action-packed adventures they encounter a deadly poppy field, fierce animals, flying monkeys, a wicked witch, a good witch, and the Mighty Oz himself.

Folklore, legends, myths and fairy tales have followed childhood through the ages, for every healthy youngster has a wholesome and instinctive love for stories fantastic, marvellous 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 elimi- nated, together with all the horrible and blood-curdling incident devised by their authors to point a fearsome moral to each tale. Modem education includes morality; there- fore the modem 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 modemised fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heartaches and nightmares are left out.