Play Book Tag discussion

Finding Dorothy – Elizabeth Letts
Book on CD read by Ann Marie Lee
3.5***

Letts mines history to go “behind the scenes” on the making of the 1938 movie that launched Judy Garland’s star - The Wizard of Oz - and, more importantly, the story of how L Frank Baum came to write the series that captured the imaginations of millions of readers.

As has become common in historical fiction, Letts uses a bifurcated time line: 1938, during the filming of the movie; and the late 19th century as Maud Gage, college student, meets and falls in love with actor / impresario Frank Baum. Few authors manage this literary device well, but Letts does a fine job, showing how events in the Baum’s lives were incorporated into the book (and in some cases into the movie without making it into the books at all).

I was engaged and interested from the beginning and felt that I learned much about both the making of the movie and about the people Maud and Frank Baum were. I admit to having never read the original book, and now I feel I may have to remedy that. Although, I, like many children of my generation, was obsessed with the annual showing of the movie, and my mother was about 10 or 11 years old when the movie was originally released and she shared her memories of going to see it in the theater with me.

Ann Marie Lee does a marvelous job of voicing the audiobook. I was never confused when the time frame shifted from 1938 to 1880 and back again.



LINK to my review