Kathleen Krull - The Road to Oz. Twists, Turns, Bumps, and Triumphs in the Life of L. Frank Baum

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

Text copyright 2008 by Kathleen Krull
Illustrations copyright 2008 by Kevin Hawkes

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Childrens Books, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Krull, Kathleen.
The road to Oz : twists, turns, bumps, and triumphs in the life of L. Frank Baum / by
Kathleen Krull ; illustrated by Kevin Hawkes. 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-375-83216-1 (trade) ISBN 978-0-375-93216-8 (lib. bdg.)
1. Baum, L. Frank (Lyman Frank), 18561919Juvenile literature. 2. Authors, American
20th centuryBiographyJuvenile literature. I. Hawkes, Kevin, ill. II. Title.
PS3503.A923Z726 2008
813.4dc22
[B]
2007041526

eBook ISBN: 978-0-385-75429-3

The illustrations in this book were created using India ink and acrylic on paper.
Random House Childrens Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

v3.1

Every road leads somewhere, or there wouldnt be any road.
The Road to Oz by L. Frank Baum

Once upon a time, there was no Dorothy from Kansas and her little dog, Toto. There was no tornado that whirled them to a magic world named Oz. No Good Witch who kissed Dorothys forehead and left a lasting, protective mark. No talking Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, Cowardly Lion. No flying monkeys, or sleepy field of poppies. No Wizard who turned out to be a humbug. No yellow brick road to the Emerald City.
Someone had to make it all up.

A thin boy darted along a path, a thick book in his hands. This white gravel path was just one of many that curled over the acres of his lawn.

It was 1860s America, rural New York to be exact, and Lyman Frank Baums family was rich.

Rosebushes dotted their emerald-green front yard. Hundreds of rosebushes in glimmering-jewel colors. In their honor, the Baums called their estate Rose Lawn. And those white pathslike miniature roads made of diamondswere a map to somewhere anywhere wherever the boy could imagine.

Frank grew up pampered, some might say spoiled.

(No one dared call him Lymanwho wouldnt hate that name?)

Tutors came from England to teach him at home. He had plenty of brothers and sisters to play with and a best friend in his younger brother Harry. Their mother and fathera businessmangave them whatever they wanted.

He was frail and gentle, a reader who took the white paths around Rose Lawn to find places to curl up with a book. He memorized words by Shakespeare, Dickens, and other classic British authors.

When he was twelve, his parents sent him away to military school. But they brought him back home when he hated it.

He spent vast amounts of time daydreaming, making things up. Everything was alive to him, even objects. Those scarecrows out in the farms and fields around Rose Lawnat night he dreamed they were chasing him.

Writing always came easily to Frank. When he was fourteen, his father bought him his own printing press. Frank and Harry wrote and printed the Rose Lawn Home Journal, a monthly newspaper about Baum family life.

How delicious it was to play with words! Especially in ones very own newspaper. To polish words into poems, to make up stories, to entertain with riddles, to poke fun with mocking news items.

Oh, the days were always too short for all Frank wanted to do. In his teens, he attempted his first novel. When he got obsessed with stamp collecting, he started up a magazineThe Stamp Collectordescribing all the latest news.

At age eighteen, he tried to focus on just one thing he could do as a career. (But it was so hard to decide.)

Frank chose a life on the stage. He had become enthralled by performers traveling around New York. The theater was an enchanting world of pure make-believe. It was also a career full of risks.

One company allowed him to join, only if he brought along five trunks of wigs and costumes, worth thousands of dollars. One by one, the other actors borrowed an expensive costume. But Frank never got any roles.

So he founded his own company. He wrote his own dramas and played all the lead roles. His troupe traveled to tiny towns, at times performing on a stage that was merely pieces of wood set on top of sawhorses.