The wizard of oz

MACMILLAN READERS PRE-INTERMEDIATE LEVEL

L. FRANK BAUM

The Wizard of Oz
Retold by Elizabeth Walker

MACMILLAN

Contents
A Note about the Author A Note about This Story The People in This Story 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 The Cyclone In the Land of the Munchkins Dorothy Meets the Scarecrow Dorothy Helps the Tin Man The Cowardly Lion The River The Field of Sleep The Queenof the Field Mice The Emerald City The Great Wizard of Oz The Wicked Witch of the West In the Power of the Wicked Witch Dorothy and the Winged Monkeys The Wonderful Wizard of Oz The Journey to the South Home Again

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8 9 12 15 19 22 25 29 30 33 38 43 47 51 54 62 68
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Points for Understanding Glossary Exercises

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A Note About The Author
Lyman Frank Baum was born in 1856 nearSyracuse, in New York State, in the Eastern part of the United States. His father made a lot of money in the oil business and Frank grew up with his brothers and sisters in a beautiful house in the countryside. Frank was not a healthy child. He had a weak heart, so he could not play games like other children. But Frank enjoyed reading and he also liked writing his own stories and telling them to hisfriends. When Frank was fifteen years old, he started a newspaper. At the same time, he also became very interested in the theater. Frank's father owned several theaters and he asked his son to manage one of them. Frank wrote a play for this theater and he played the leading part himself. In 1882, Frank married Maud Gage. Although Frank and Maud were very different, their marriage was a happy oneand they had four sons. Frank continued to work very hard and his health became worse. He joined his father's business, but that later failed and most of the money was lost. Frank and his family moved to the Midwest in 1882 and in 1888 he opened a shop called "Baum's Bazaar". The shop was very popular, but it only lasted two years. People in the Midwest were poor and they could not afford to buyvery much. Frank went on to manage a weekly newspaper, but this also failed. After this, Frank worked as a reporter on a newspaper, and then as a traveling salesman, in Chicago. Although Frank worked very hard, he always had time to tell his stories to his children. He decided to write stories for other children, too. A few years later, he began to publish

these stories and his books of fairytales became very popular. Frank had at last found the work that he could do best. L. Frank Baum's most famous book was The Wonderful Wizard1 of Oz, which was published in 1900. The book made Frank a great deal of money. In 1908, he was able to move his family to California, where they lived in a house called "Ozcot". Frank Baum wrote many more books about Oz.

These include Ozma of Oz (1907),The Road to Oz (1909), The Lost Princess of Oz (1917), and Glinda of Oz (1920). But The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has always been his most popular
book. Frank lived his last years in California, and he finally died from several illnesses in May 1919. He had worked very hard all his life and his health was never good. But his books have brought pleasure and delight to thousands of readers— children andadults alike.

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The People in This Story

1
The Cyclone

D
Dorothy Scarecrow
Tin Man

orothy lived in the State of Kansas with her Uncle Henry and her Aunt Em. They all lived in a little wooden house in the middle of the great Kansas prairie. The land was very flat and there were no trees or other houses
nearby.

Cowardly Lion

Aunt Em

Uncle Henry

The Wizard of OzThe Wicked Witch of the West

Glinda, the Good Witch

Toto

Uncle Henry was a farmer and he had built the wooden house himself, many years before. The house only had one room. That room was used for eating and for sleeping in too. There was a little hole under the house that was called the "cyclone cellar". The family hid in the cellar when the strong winds of a cyclone blew across the...