When I read the Shanower & Young comic adaptation, I praised the book for its cast of misfits. That lack of agency was the main problem I had with the book. And indeed, the whole book is like that: Tip's decision to ride to the Emerald City with Jack and the Sawhorse is pretty random the characters leave the Emerald City to get the Tin Woodman's help, and go right back and end up in pretty much the exact same situation they were in before they left, because as one guy with an axe, the Tin Woodman is actually not much help the flight into what seems to be our world feels pretty pointless and then Glinda solves everything. While Wizard puts Dorothy in peril right from the beginning, by the end of the first chapter of Land, where we're going is less clear. Land's is much less successful: we hear about abusive Mombi, but don't see her, and then Tip spends some time building Jack for reasons that to be honest seemed a bit dubious. Wizard has a very arresting first chapter: the excellent description of gray Kansas, culminating in the cyclone. On the other hand, I found the book less appealing on this readthrough. (I think he did point out, though, that my voice for the bear in Jon Klassen's I Want My Hat Back is the same as Jack Pumpkinhead's he didn't comment on my Sawhorse voice being the same one I use for Applejack in My Little Pony comics.) There's a good cast of characters to which I could attribute distinctive voices: cackling Mombi, dim-witted Jack Pumpkinhead, the drawling Sawhorse, the extravagant Woggle-Bug. After we read about Tip building Jack Pumpkinhead, he built a version of his little brother out of household objects! There are ways in which this one is fun to read aloud. My son seemed to enjoy this one as much as the first. So I seized the excuse to upgrade my much-loved copy of Marvelous Land, and I picked up the 1985 Books of Wonder edition the Books of Wonder editions of Baum's original fourteen are not quite facsimiles of the first editions (this one, for example, has different end papers than the original), but they are pretty close. Neill illustrations per chapter, including color plates, it had about one crappy picture every other chapter! This was great when I was reading the books to myself at age ten, but I did not think it would maintain a three-year-old's interest. Denslow, but my edition of Marvellous Land was a re-illustrated Puffin Classic from 1985.
One of the big draws of the first book for my son was the profuse illustrations by W. (Indeed, at the time that I write this, we're a few chapters into book six.) But when I pulled my childhood edition of The Marvellous Land of Oz off the shelf, it was clear to me that the book was inadequate to our purposes.
I read my son The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and his interest was high enough that I resolved to continue onward into the second book.
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