Science Fiction and Fantasy

I've never read any of the books by Baum; like you, it was simply a film for me. I did see "Wicked" on Broadway and throughly enjoyed it, so of course, I had to read MacGuire's book. I'm on the waiting list at the local library for the rest of the books in his series; sure wish people would read faster! ;-)

I can recommend "Confessions of an Ugly Step Sister", oh what fun that one was.

I read it about the same time I read Liz Jensens "My Dirty Little Book of Stolen Time: A Novel". The two seemed to compliment each other, though one was in Denmark, and the other in the Netherlands, they were set about the same time, and had a similar pacing.

Thanks for the recommendations; they're now both on my reading list! ;-)

I've not read any of the original Baum, but I saw the movie every year growing up, and then in a movie theater too when I got to be an adult. (I'm thinking it was a sing- a-long "Wizard of Oz" at the Castro Theater in the early- mid 80's...) 

I've read several Maguire books, including Wicked, but not yet Son of a Witch or the one about the Cowardly Lion.  I haven't seen Wicked as a play yet.

Julia

I read at least 18 of the original Baum stories to DS (while DDs listened, too), and we liked them all, but really loved the first 10 or so - after that, they started to follow a pattern, but we still liked them. After that, I read a few of the non-Baum books written to continue the series after his death,but didn't like them.
The movie is quite a bit different from the first book in the series, which is itself different from the other books in the series.

I haven't read Wicked. It sounds interesting.
There have been a few movies based on some of the other Oz books,and of course there's The Wiz - a great version of the story of the original movie (different from the book, remember).

My favourite Oz movie/miniseries updating the Oz movie is "Tin Man", a 3-part series I saw on the Space Channel a few months ago. It tells the story of Dorothy's granddaughter,also named Dorothy Gale, who was sent to our Earth to rescue her from her evil sister, who was possessed by the wicked witch when Dorothy was a small child. She has been raised by her "aunt" and "uncle" who are really androids, to protect her until she is again needed back in the Outer Zone....

All of the familiar Oz characters have their analogues in Tin Man, often in unusual forms - for example, Toto is a large black man who is a shapechanger and can take the form of a small dog.
I was fascinated when I saw the second part on TV, and watched the third part and then the entire series again the next time it was on - I'll watch it again if I can.

Roberta