"The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" and "The Marvelous Land of Oz" by L. Frank Baum, illustrated by Kriss Sison. Bright and cheerful fairy tales for all ages.
The author advertised this as a modern (1900) fairy tale without any of the dark bits found in older works such as Grimms' Fairy Tales. The entire book mostly lived up to this promise with no unpleasant surprises, and almost all events are predictable. Almost entirely predictable, except there is a twist regarding the Wizard of Oz himself. Also, even though the ending to Land of Oz was more or less what I expected, I didn't think authors in 1904 would actually write it. Even with the straightforward storyline, there is a sense of charm in how the characters behave that made the book interesting. This is a fine and safe work for young children to read.
Reading this as an adult, there are various bits of details that deserve a bit more thought. The main human characters never got hurt in the entire book, but their party members are subject to all sorts of bad things including dismemberment. Scarecrow effectively said that Kansas is a boring place and people would all leave if they did not have brains, plus other memorable lines like "only people worthy of consideration in this world are the unusual ones". Tin Woodman's identity is really a variation of Theseus' Paradox, and Jinjur's revolution coincides with women's suffrage movement. Sometimes you wonder if the author had other agenda in mind. It's not merely children's literature, there is quite a bit of depth if you really read into it.
Honestly, I bought this book for the pictures. This is the 2016 edition, illustrated by the same artist who did "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" earlier. I have never read any of the Wizard of Oz series of books before this one, and the text is just not the same as Alice in Wonderland, lacking all the acid trips and logic traps and especially all the cats. But the illustrations are exactly what I expected. I am not sure if I would continue to read other Wizard of Oz series, but I would probably buy other books by the same illustrator.
Now I finally understand all those random places where Wizard of Oz was referenced.
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