{"id":218,"date":"2010-05-08T10:36:51","date_gmt":"2010-05-08T15:36:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jessicamannion.com\/?p=218"},"modified":"2018-03-08T20:21:49","modified_gmt":"2018-03-09T01:21:49","slug":"the-magical-wizard-of-oz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jessicamannion.com\/?p=218","title":{"rendered":"The Magical Wizard of Oz"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was little, my favorite book was The Wizard of Oz<\/em> by L. Frank Baum. We had this ratty orange paperback version \u00e2\u20ac\u201d nothing special\u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u201d I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not even sure if it had the illustrations in it. I must have read that book 5 or 6 times myself during my childhood, and my sisters had all read it too. Its popularity in our household was clearly evident: my sister Jenny and I had drawn pictures on the blank pages at the beginning and end of the book, and the spine had been reinforced several times with masking tape.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

When I got into my teens, I got it into my mind that I would be a collector of books: matching sets was my ideal. I had the ambitious goal of owning every single Nancy Drew book in that yellow hard-cover style that was so popular for so long. That goal was never realized, however; do you know how many of those books there are? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a lot, lemme tell you.<\/p>\n

I also wanted a matching set of the Wizard of Oz<\/em> books, all thirteen of those that were originally written by L. Frank Baum.<\/p>\n

Anyone who is a fan of the series will know that there are far more than thirteen books, as Baum\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s family carried on the tradition after his death. I was, however, a purist, and I most wanted those original thirteen.<\/p>\n

I finally got my wish, and collected a matching set of paperbacks; they weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t high-quality collectors\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 editions or anything, but they were uniform in height and color, they were polished, shiny, and the pages were pristine; they were even numbered, and seeing them lined up on my bookshelf made me feel I had accomplished something.<\/p>\n

I gave the old orange book away.<\/p>\n

Several years later, in my early twenties, I was at a second-hand store doing my favorite thing: browsing through the book section.<\/p>\n

On a free-standing wire rack of paperbacks, a flash of traffic-cone orange caught my attention. I turned the bookstand, and there in front of me was a familiar orange cover that read Wizard of Oz<\/em> in faded yellow letters. Dry and cracked masking tape covered the spine.<\/p>\n

I picked the book up and opened it. There inside were the pictures that Jenny and I had drawn in purple crayon; there were even our names, and our old phone number\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwhich I still remember because it was the first phone number I ever had to learn.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, it became the most important book in the world, and I bought it back for 75 cents.<\/p>\n

I just turned 40, and I still have that orange copy of The Wizard of Oz<\/em>. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have that first matched set any longer, however. I guess I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m still a collector, but the things I choose to collect have changed.<\/p>\n

This graphic-story that the below image comes from reminded me of that: of the feeling I got when I rediscovered that old book, when I realized I had not even known I missed having that particular version in my hands. I had missed the comfortable softness of the pages, and the pliant flexibility of the old paper cover, its dusty texture against my fingers.<\/p>\n

Be sure to follow the link to read the whole story called Mister Bookseller<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was little, my favorite book was The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. We had this ratty orange paperback version \u00e2\u20ac\u201d nothing special\u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u201d I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not even sure if it had the illustrations in it. I must have read that book 5 or 6 times myself during my childhood, and my sisters had … Continue reading The Magical Wizard of Oz<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":258,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[19],"tags":[72,75,77,73,76,71,74],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jessicamannion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/Oz2.jpg?fit=1219%2C774&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9TvP3-3w","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":602,"url":"https:\/\/www.jessicamannion.com\/?p=602","url_meta":{"origin":218,"position":0},"title":"Book Review for Life During Wartime by Katie Rogin","date":"September 10, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"(Winston-Salem, NC: Mastodon Publishing, 2018) Katie Rogin is an award-winning writer with a diverse oeuvre. 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While both books are excellent, this interview focuses on\u00a0All City.\u00a0It is an important book, and very possibly a prophetic\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Articles"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jessicamannion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/7S-DiFrancesco-All-City-comps-10.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":465,"url":"https:\/\/www.jessicamannion.com\/?p=465","url_meta":{"origin":218,"position":2},"title":"Book Review for Dixie Luck by Andy Plattner","date":"August 1, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Andy Plattner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s collection, Dixie Luck, is a stirring read right out of the gate, full of finely crafted short stories, as well as the novella Terminal, winner of the Faulkner Society\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 2016 Gold Medal for Best Novella. Plattner \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a former horse-racing journalist \u00e2\u20ac\u201c also teaches English and creative writing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Published Work"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jessicamannion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/9780881466515_p0_v1_s550x406.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":525,"url":"https:\/\/www.jessicamannion.com\/?p=525","url_meta":{"origin":218,"position":3},"title":"Book Review for Sor Juana by Ilan Stavans","date":"January 30, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Ilan Stavans\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book Sor Juana: Or, The Persistence of Pop is a loving meditation on iconic\u00c2\u00a0 seventeenth century Mexican nun Sor Juana In\u00c3\u00a9s de la Cruz, in particular her image and its omnipresence in modern Latinx pop culture. 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I was doing laundry at my favorite local laundromat\u00e2\u20ac\u201dyou know, the one that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s well-lit and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Essays"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jessicamannion.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jessicamannion.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jessicamannion.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jessicamannion.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jessicamannion.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=218"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.jessicamannion.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":380,"href":"https:\/\/www.jessicamannion.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218\/revisions\/380"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jessicamannion.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jessicamannion.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jessicamannion.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jessicamannion.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}