Chapter XXIV. Home Again

Introduction

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, 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 blood-curdling incidents devised by their authors to point a

fearsome moral to each tale. Modern education includes morality;

therefore the modern 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 please children of today. It aspires to being a

modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and

the heartaches and nightmares are left out.

L. Frank Baum

Chicago, April, 1900.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz