March 08--"Avatar" opens with a briefing for Marines who have just arrived on Pandora, a distant moon populated by strange life forms. The commander cautions the newcomers with a gruff warning: "You're not in Kansas anymore."
So there you have it, on the authority of James Cameron himself: Even in 2149, halfway across the galaxy, we will still be quoting "The Wizard of Oz."
No matter how many times we visit L. Frank Baum's magical kingdom, it keeps calling us back. On Friday comes Disney's $200 million extravaganza, "Oz the Great and Powerful," starring James Franco as a small-time circus magician hurled into Oz and taken as its savior by the inhabitants.
Every prominent nation has its classic work of kid lit. In England it's "Alice in Wonderland," in Italy "Pinocchio," in Sweden "Pippi Longstocking," in Germany it's a multiple choice among the Brothers Grimm's "Rapunzel" and "Hansel and Gretel."
In the United States, there are plenty of options, too, from Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer to Laura Ingalls Wilder's plucky frontier girls. But our undisputed classic is Baum's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz."
Baum, a onetime South Dakota shopkeeper, claimed he conceived his "modernized fairy-tale ... solely to please children of today." Instead of using cliched European-style fairies and ogres, Baum invented fantastic new characters. He also rejected the didactic nature of older folktales, crafting an odd, ambiguous story that refused to settle into a pat moral framework. Should Dorothy leave gray Kansas behind, or return to the safety of home? The story's mixed messages provide a large share of its appeal.
"It's really a weird book," said Elizabeth Sullivan, editor of a new full-color illustrated gift edition just published by Harper Design. "People don't generally realize that. When they talk about 'Alice in Wonderland,' they've read the book, but when they talk about 'Oz,' they're referencing the movie. You have the land of the China cups, guys with necks that boink out, a guy who almost drowns in a river. The thrill of the unknown freaks kids out, and then when they get through it, it's like a scary ride at a fair."
Sullivan thought the new edition needed a contemporary visual style.
"I was thrilled and terrified when they approached me to interpret these iconic characters," said Austin, Texas-based illustrator Michael Sieben. His path to fine art started with his gnarly graphic designs for his fellow ramp rats' skateboards, mostly monsters and teenagers with skull heads. Sieben's "Oz" illustrations combine a rough, edgy line with a sense of dreamlike weightlessness reminiscent of Maurice Sendak's work. "I'm hoping that there's crossover from adults interested in art and contemporary illustration, and I certainly hope children enjoy it."
The possibility of endless reimagining is one of the keys to the ongoing popularity of "Oz." "It is open to revision and extension far more than a down-to-earth set of stories like Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer," says Edward Schiappa, a professor of media studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "The wizard, the witches, her trio of friends all are richly written characters that allow one to pick and choose who to like and who one can relate to. Dorothy is crafted nearly perfectly: Strong enough at times to be a role model for girls, but not threatening in any way to boys."
