When I was a child, in the '50s, you couldn't get the Oz books in a lot of public libraries. It was one of the first titles in a new series analyzing children's classics. He was really breaking new ground in children's literature. The book was full of humor and action, without the moralizing and flowery language common to early children's books. For kids who grew up on TV broadcasts and video replays of the 1939 Judy Garland film, the wealth of Oz books is a bit of a shocker.
Many people assume the film came first.
It featured an unprecedented 24 color plates and more than 100 text-based pictures of varying colors. Hanff, a serious collector in his own right, owns some 2,000 Oz-related volumes, including numerous first editions. He caught the fever at an early age. He read a chapter a night and it wasn't enough. Michael Hearn, one of the world's leading Oz authorities, tells a similar story.