75th Anniversary: The Wizard of Oz

Did anyone else have a Wizard of Oz on Christmas tradition?

I distinctly remember watching the Wizard of Oz at my grandparents' house in Milwaukee.  I don't remember if it was Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, but I do remember hiding behind the Christmas Tree.  That scary, green witch!  Of course, after hiding from her, I would inevitably dream that she was coming out of the television to get me- and this was very pre-Ringu.

The trauma wore off, though, and I spent an elementary school summer break reading all of the Oz books.  A task I would like to undertake again...maybe when there is a Little Sare-endipity to share the magic with.  I fell in love with the land, and the characters.  The movie, too, grew on me as I got older- and as my mother and uncles made fun of the witch's guards.  "Please, and take it with you!" (fast forward to 1:16)

So, I was very excited to see that Capstone Young Readers came out with a 75th Anniversary book adaptation of the film (coming out August 2013).

The Wizard of Oz adapted by Beth Bracken (written by L. Frank Baum; movie-fied by Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, and Edgar Allan Woolf ) uses film stills and original dialogue from the 1939 classic movie to create a picture book for young readers.

I guess it would be an okay companion, if one had already seen the movie.  I would not use it as an introduction to the Merry Old Land of Oz.  

The narration was okay- a lot of the sentences started with conjunctions (which I am guilty of, so, meh *shrug*).  I didn't find the visual content very aesthetic.  While I enjoyed the green and gold themes of the pages, the movie stills didn't flow organically.  It was like they were copy/pasted into a template.  A fairly boring, redundant template. Like- I could've done it on Shutterfly and made it more interesting. I just don't feel the stills translated well on the page.  

As I said- it would be okay to read along with, or after, the movie (which is being re-released this year! *fist pump*).  However, there are so many other adaptations, with much better visuals.  I wouldn't recommend getting this.  If you must, though, get the original book to supplement it.