Happy Father’s Day to the father’s everywhere! But especially to my wonderful husband and amazing father to our daughter. It is so fun to watch Chloe and Tim play together. No joy can compare to watching them laugh merrily. I am truly blessed.
And also to my wonderful Father. I love you! I was reminded the other day of a book he used to read to us when we were much younger. It was called “The Patchwork Girl of Oz.”
I asked my Mom about it and it turns out they still had a copy of it at home so I was able to borrow it last week and I read it this weekend. It’s apparently a sequel to “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” written by L. Frank Baum. I was surprised to see that he actually wrote 14 books about Oz. This was book 7 in the sequence. They synopsis reads, “A munchkin boy named Ojo must find a cure to free his Uncle Nunkie from a magical spell that has turned him into a statue. With the help of Scraps, a living Patchwork Girl, Ojo journeys through Oz in order to save his uncle.”
I only have vague memories of my Dad reading the story (since I was pretty young), but I do remember being enthralled with it. So, it was fascinating to read it now as an adult. It’s a delightful book full of fairytale characters and things that really stretch the imagination. I also appreciate the writing not being “dumbed down” just b/c it’s a children’s book. I’m excited to track down and read more of the Oz books.
I think dad had several of the OZ books — I remember at least a couple, but I can’t remember which ones they were.
Since they were written so long ago, they are actually now public domain and the text can be found online. The Gutenberg Project curates a huge catalog of such out-of-copyright books. Baum’s section (including all of the OZ books) can be found at:
http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/b#a42
I found a nice reader for my phone that lets me download books from places like gutenberg and read them anywhere.
Hey thanks! I’ll definitely check out that site. 🙂