The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

173 pages

Published 1900 

Summary: 

It is the first novel in the Oz series of books. A Kansas farm girl named Dorothy ends up in the magical Land of Oz after she and her pet dog Toto are swept away from their home by a cyclone. Upon her arrival in the magical world of Oz, she learns she cannot return home until she has destroyed the Wicked Witch of the West.

My Thoughts: 

I picked The Wizard of Oz as my book club's 2025 classic book because of all of the hype about Wicked, which is, of course, based on the book of the same name by Gregory Macguire and serves as something of a prequel to The Wizard of Oz. I used to read an abridged edition of the book to my daughter when she was growing up (it was one of her favorite books), but it's been a very long time since I read the full story (probably around the time I was 9, after having watched the movie on television one evening. Between the abridged version, the decades since I'd read the original, and the movie adaptation, I'd forgotten a lot about this book. 

Number one, they were silver slippers, not ruby. They never saw the Wicked Witch of the West until they were taken to her castle. Glinda didn't appear until the end of the book. And there was almost no buildup before the tornado - no farm hands, no Professor Marvel, and no Almira Gulch and her threats against Toto. But there were a lot more adventures on the way to the Emerald City, including a journey through a land entirely made of china, great ravines and rivers to cross, and new enemies and friends along the way. 

But I was delighted to find that much of the dialogue in the movie came straight from the book, particularly when the friends were with the Wizard. I found myself wishing that I'd found a copy of the full book to read to my daughter instead of the abridged edition. 

Something I hadn't realized when I'd read the book so very long ago was that, while it was written to appeal to children, it was heavily political. The silver slippers, for example, were a metaphor for the silver standard which was being replaced by the gold standard (the fiduciary backing metal); the yellow brick road symbolizes the dangerous path the gold standard placed the United States upon. The green of the Emerald City represented the color of paper money. The Emerald City itself represents Washington D.c. Each of the characters, from Dorothy to the Wicked Witches represents a class of people (or, in the case of the Cowardly Lion, one specific three-time presidential candidate from Nebraska, William Jennings Bryan). 

I learned all of this after having finished the book then wished I had time to reread it before my book club meeting, knowing what I know now. If you ever find yourself contemplating a reread of this classic, I highly recommend learning more before you go into it - it will give the book so much more depth. I did enjoy it without that knowledge, but I would have enjoyed it more had I learned more first. 

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom 

384 pages

Published February 2010 by Atria Books

Publisher's Summary: 

Orphaned during her passage from Ireland, young, white Lavinia arrives on the steps of the kitchen house and is placed, as an indentured servant, under the care of Belle, the master’s illegitimate slave daughter. Lavinia learns to cook, clean, and serve food, while guided by the quiet strength and love of her new family.

In time, Lavinia is accepted into the world of the big house, caring for the master’s opium-addicted wife and befriending his dangerous yet protective son. She attempts to straddle the worlds of the kitchen and big house, but her skin color will forever set her apart from Belle and the other slaves.

Through the unique eyes of Lavinia and Belle, Grissom’s debut novel unfolds in a heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful story of class, race, dignity, deep-buried secrets, and familial bonds.

My Thoughts: 

This is a book that's been on my to-be-read list for years. When I was creating my book club's reading list for 2024, I looked at that list for ideas and noted that this one was also on a lot of lists of best books for book clubs. Before I get into my thoughts on this book, let me tell you two things that may sway your opinion of the book. Number one - every one in my book club really liked this book. Number two - it was a great book for a discussion. That may be, in part, due to my opinions about the book, which pushed people to have to defend it. 

• It felt quite melodramatic and was made more so because everything terrible that could possibly go wrong did. To the point that it lost any tension - I already knew what was going to happen. 
• Too many stereotypes for me - the evil overseer (a la Simon Legree in Uncle Tom's Cabin), the mamee who mothers both her own children and the those in the big house, the damsel in distress lady of the house. 
• Entirely too many cases of miscommunication that lead to tragedies for years. 
• I felt like Grissom missed the boat with Marshall. Fair enough, so many terrible things happened to him growing up - an absent father, sexual abuse at the hands of a man his father defended, his mother's lack of caring for him and idolization of his sister, an attachment to a man who lead him astray, a growing hatred of the enslaved people, and alcoholism. One reviewer suggested the book would have been better if Marshall had been an attentive, loving husband to Lavinia and then an evil man with Belle and the other blacks...a Jekyll/Hyde. I definitely agree. We never see anything redeeming about him after a point. 
• I honestly just want to slap Lavinia again and again. Yes, she was young when she came to the plantation; yes, she was white but raised by and lived with the enslaved people. They were her family. Still, she never really seemed to grasp the division between the two. Then there was a very important packet she saw delivered and then completely forgot about for nearly the entire book; the marriage to Marshall, a man she had already known to have a fiery temper; and her belief that Belle's son's father was a man she might have ended up with had it not been for this and her inability to see what was plain to see just by looking at the boy. 

My book club worked hard to change my mind; but, in the end, I felt like this book missed its very real potential. 

The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin

The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin

Read by Cassandra Campbell

12 hours, 14 minutes

Published February 2019 by HarperCollins Publishers

Publisher's Summary: 

In the spring of 1981, the young Skinner siblings — fierce Renee, dreamy Caroline, golden-boy Joe, and watchful Fiona — lose their father to a heart attack and their mother to a paralyzing depression, events that thrust them into a period they will later call “the Pause”. Caught between the predictable life they once led and an uncertain future that stretches before them, the siblings navigate the dangers and resentments of the Pause to emerge fiercely loyal and deeply connected.

Two decades later, the Skinners find themselves again confronted with a family crisis that tests the strength of these bonds and forces them to question the life choices they've made and what, exactly, they will do for love.

Narrated nearly a century later by the youngest sibling, the renowned poet Fiona Skinner, The Last Romantics spans a lifetime. It's a story of sex and affection, sacrifice and selfishness, deeply held principles and dashed expectations, a lost engagement ring, a squandered baseball scholarship, unsupervised summers at the neighborhood pond, and an iconic book of love poems. But most of all, it is the story of Renee, Caroline, Joe, and Fiona: the ways they support each other, the ways they betray each other, and the ways they knit back together bonds they have fractured.

My Thoughts: 

The Last Romantics is a book about the things that tie a family together and the things that tear them apart, which makes me very glad to have chosen it as one of this year's book club selections. There's a lot to discuss here, including both the strengths and the weaknesses (in my opinion, of course) of the book. Let's get those (again, in my opinion) weaknesses out of the way first. 

The Weaknesses: 

• Fiona works, for most of the book, for a climate watch group, which is all very well and good. Except that the book alternates between 100+-year-old Fiona telling a group of fans about her family history while outside it's clear that climate change has, indeed made a powerful impact on the Earth. Except that's not really touched on all that much and it doesn't really impact that story in any way. It could have been left out or incorporated more. 
• So the entire reason for Fiona to tell the audience her family's story is to explain to them who the "Luna" that appears in her most famous poem was to her family. We finally get to that point late in the book and then I felt like we got bogged down in that piece of the story. I wanted the story to be about the siblings and not veer off into Luna's story; and then I found the girls' obsession with finding Luna very strange and unlikely. 

The Strengths: 

• I do love me a good story about siblings - about their relationships with each other and about who each of them are in their own lives. 
• These are particularly strong characters. While Fiona is clearly the main character of the book, each of her siblings are well-developed and any one of them stands on their own. We can clearly see how the young child they were grew into the adults they became and how The Pause impacted that growth. 
• There are a lot of themes explored in the book and they never feel forced. 
• I very much liked the way Conklin tied up the book. You all know I enjoy a book that doesn't necessarily tie everything neatly with a bow at the end. 

I'm so looking forward to hearing what my book club members think of this one!