Review: All the Oz You Can Stand
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 08 1, 2013
I bought The Complete Collection because I remembered one scene from one of the Oz books (invisible bears no less) that my brother had read to me when we spent a lot of time in a hospital waiting room when I was about six.  With that in mind I found the collection to be what I wanted.I had to down grade my opinion of the collection because it seemed that Baum ran out of story material and started bringing in some of his "other" characters to "freshen up" basically the same story lines.  I'm into the eighth book and have put it aside to begin some other reading.  My attention span was finally over come.  It also seems that our culture has changed enough that what seemed amazing to the young people (and adults for that ,matter), although Baum admittedly targeted children, of the early 1900's is over shadowed by the media experience of today.Having stated that the work is only "Okay" let me close by saying that it is entertaining in small doses.  That Baum slips in little nuggets of wisdom and humor in some of the most unexpected places.  His character dialog can be quite thought provoking.  I was surprised to find that Baum was forward thinking enough to have used "wireless radio communication" and appears to have one of his characters use a cell telephone device.As a study of the evolution of Baum himself it is quite interesting.I should have rated it higher but it is too much to wade through in one continuous read.