![]() "I can remember watching The Wizard of Oz on our small Philco TV when I was maybe 5 or 6 in the early '50s. They were a big part in how I learned to read and also how I learned to get drawn into an imaginary world." (My favorite was his imitation of Billina the chicken.) When I was older he came to my third-grade class and read them aloud for story time. We have close to all of them, and my dad would read them aloud to me and my sister every night before bedtime, voices included. "The Oz books were a huge part of my childhood. my amazing children (5, 4, 2 and 1) sang as they acquired more and more candy from the neighbors." - Bethany Jones My own children, who watched it dozens of times on videotape, could never understand or appreciate the additional pleasure generated by that kind of anticipation." It was by far the most important television event of the year for us. We waited all year for the annual broadcast of The Wizard of Oz. The technology of color television at that time was almost as magical as Oz itself. ![]() For me that didn't happen until I was about 20 years old. "Like most of us who grew up watching The Wizard of Oz on black-and-white TV, I will never forget the first time I saw the scene when Dorothy opens the door and enters into Oz in color. Now if I could just convince my own children to read them!" They certainly aren't precious antiques, though - they show the wear and tear of being read by three generations. Louis and my mother read as a child in Bogota and I read as a child in rural Minnesota. And who wouldn't love stories of children off on adventures without pesky adults around? I still have those same books that my grandmother read as a child in East St. I think I loved them so much because my mother and grandmother grew up reading them as well. They set the stage for a life as a reader. They are the books I read over and over again as a child. So often, in fact, that the Schwan's man, who delivered groceries to our home once a week, finally asked my Mother, 'Do you own any other videos?' " "As children, my sisters and I watched The Wizard of Oz repeatedly. with a specialization in children's literature, so I'm continually blown back again and again to Baum's marvelous land." This early infatuation and fascination with Oz may be why I am now working on my English Ph.D. I comforted myself with a big flashlight and a hardback copy of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, reading the opening chapters over and over. When I was about 10 or 11, one particularly dangerous storm - one that produced golf-ball sized hail - sent my family to our basement where we were forced to sit and wait for the storm to subside and electricity to return. "I grew up in Indiana, so the threat of tornadoes marked every spring and summer season. There I was at age 10, 'The Wizard of Oz.' " - Frank Maitoza, 75, Hemet, Calif. ![]() I stood outside in the sun and called to my mom to take my picture. I took my bathrobe and made a cape, carved out a stick with the letters OZ for my wand and made a star-like crown for my head. "My adventures in Oz started in the fourth grade in Ashby, Mass., in 1945.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |