As a child I found this book particularly frightening, in both a good and bad way. It’s one of Baum’s stronger stories, in that it’s more linear and more focused than many of his others. But it’s dark in a way the others are not, in part because the events of the story are less fantastic and more real. Children’s literature is full of orphans but a child seeing everyone he knows dragged off in chains is terrifying. I’m not ...
