I’m feeling witchy.

Late last year I read Frank Baum’s “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” to my wee one. It took us about a week to finish the novel, reading two to three chapters a night before bed. By the time we finished the book, we had both fallen even deeper in love with the classic tale of Dorothy, Toto and the amazing characters in the land of Oz.

I was surprised by the violent scenes, mostly involving the Tin Woodsman and his ax. I did not censor the book for my 5-year-old. I read her the book, as Baum wrote it a hundred years ago. If it was good enough for children in the last turn of the century, it is good enough for mine. Besides, what kind of a free speech advocate would I be if I started censoring my child’s reading?

After the Baum book, I itched to read more so I picked up “Wicked,” by Gregory Maguire, which I already had in my library. A friend gave it as a gift over ten years ago but I never got around to reading it until now. This is the grown up version of Oz. Sex, politics, philosophy, the earthy lore of religions… I love it! Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, is practical, passionate, skeptical of lies and illusions. She comes undone, not because she is evil, but because she loves deeper than any one in the story. She is not unlike Dorothy in her innocence.

When I was way into the latter part of the book, my wee one got curious enough to ask me to read “Wicked” to her. I obliged, reading from the part I had gotten to, in which Dorothy comes to Oz. The book was over her head, though she liked listening to me read, and it put her to sleep in less than a chapter.

This dress is my homage to Dorothy. These photos were taken a few years back, when I didn’t have a pair of ruby red slippers. Now that I do, I can click my heels and say, “There’s no place like home.”

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MAYCAM has a larger version of these photos.