viernes, 23 de noviembre de 2018

The Wizard of Oz ¡Ya a la venta!




Introduction for
parents and teachers

   More than one fool would give out his fortune to anyone who could guarantee him/her the ability of knowing other people’s deepest thoughts. But this gift has existed –through reading– for thousands of years. What is becoming scarcer is the interest in reading, although access to information and culture grows everyday. Time is also scarce in inverse proportion.

Adequately choosing what we are going to read is as important as being interested in the vision offered by those who preceded us in observing the world. Being selective in our intellectual consumption is one of the modern human being’s pending tasks. More so when we talk about what children read.
Being aware of this, I’ve selected a story that synthesizes several concepts of great interest for learning; not only for children. Adults should also remember appearance is highly deceivable, and the answer to our needs is found within us.
The Wizard of Oz is possibly the story that has captivated the most people around the world. Who isn’t familiar with the adventures of Dorothy and her peculiar friends along the Yellow Brick Road? It all started when the North-American writer, L. Frank Baum, wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, in 1900. He would later give continuity to his story with thirteen sequels. Immediately after its publication, it was musically adapted for Broadway. Then it turned into theatre shows, film, television and comics.
It was 1939 when Hollywood pulled out all the stops to turn it into a big movie production. It wasn’t the first time The Wizard of Oz was made into a movie, but the version we are all familiar with, with Judie Garland starring as Dorothy, has been the most widely known. It’s impossible for me to adapt the world of Oz without watching this classic first.
   I’ve tried to keep the original essence fresh in this version. That’s the main objective in all adaptations. The second goal is for readers to create a complicity bond with the story. In order to achieve this, I’ve updated the girl’s needs, as well as those of the three peculiar characters that go with her, emphasizing the current circumstances of our time. Not because there weren’t any cowards before –like the lion’s story– who were challenged by society’s rules; not because the past wasn’t full of cold-hearted people –like the tin man– indifferent to others; not because the scarecrow of Oz, submissive to the minds of others, has been an ongoing presence throughout human history. We’ve always had an abundance of this. Critical times, like the one we are going through, demand from us a bigger effort in solving these needs. Solving them brings evolution.
   But, above all, the biggest lesson this fantasy story wishes to give us is appearance is fake and always favours somebody; annulled minds, paralysing fears and emotional insensitivity are the best weapons for those who, like in Oz, are hidden behind the curtain. What better way than a simple story to start telling our children this is the world they are growing up in.


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