The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

By: L. Frank Baum

Narrated by: Anne Hathaway

Length: 3 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's summary

Audie Award Nominee, Solo Narration - Female, 2013

One of the best-known stories in American culture, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has stirred the imagination of young and old alike for over 100 years. Academy Award-winning actress Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married, Alice in Wonderland, The Dark Knight Rises) lends her voice to this uniquely American fairy tale.

Follow the adventures of young Dorothy Gale and her dog Toto as they get swept away into the magical land of Oz , where they encounter characters and places you may remember from the movie - and several more that never made it to the big screen - on an unforgettable journey to the Emerald City.

“It’s such a wonderful book and I was so happy to be a part of bringing it to life”, Ms. Hathaway said. “There are a lot of great voices in it. The more fun you have with it, the sillier and the more free you get with it, the better it is because it’s a story that can handle it. It’s amazing to be able to discover something new about something you feel you know so well.”

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Public Domain (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Anne Hathaway is nothing short of masterful in her narration of Baum’s beloved classic.... As narrator, she is lithe yet precise; her voice sounds lilting or emphatic, as the story details require. In character, she is spectacular. Each character is filled with personality - a light-voiced Witch of the North; a brusque soldier at Oz’s palace; a monotone, robot-like Oz; and a usually cheerful and genuine Dorothy. The variety enriches the listening experience. Yes, one may know the story well, but Hathaway makes this recording a definitive one.” (AudioFile)

spellbinding for the family

This is a great presentation of the classic, which I think is best demonstrated by the impact it had on my 5 year old son. He sat quietly listening to the entire work from start to finish throughout a Saturday morning, soaking it all up and loving every second of it.

An Actress Performing or a Reader Reading?

Because I love the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz and had listened to Anna Fields' Blackstone Audio (2001) fine reading of the original book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), I was curious to try an audiobook version read by a popular and accomplished actress, and so listened to the Anne Hathaway "performs" The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (2011), for audible.com's "a-list" line of classic books read by popular actors.

First, about the original novel itself, the story is light-hearted, with plenty of fantastic and appealing characters (like Dorothy's companions), exciting flare-ups of ultra-violence (like the orders and fates of the Wicked Witch's forty wolves, forty crows, and forty bees) ironic insights into human nature (like the pure Tin Woodman's mistaken belief that if he had a heart he would not need to be so careful to avoid hurting living beings because people with hearts naturally avoid hurting others), humorous lines (like when the Scarecrow asks the Lion if he has brains he answers "I suppose so. I've never looked to see"), and good themes for children (like personal hygiene is important and we all have the potential to develop the qualities we think we lack and just need to find the confidence and opportunities to use them). If you've only seen the movie, and if you like it, you should read or listen to the original book, because it's interesting to compare the similar and different points between them. The movie, for instance, stops about three-fifths of the way through the book, downplays the violence, increases Dorothy's age, and adds songs and dances, as well as the wonderful feature of some fantasy world characters having real world alter-egos.

One feature of the Audible a-list audiobook that's convenient and nice is that the 24 chapters of the book are divided into 24 navigable chapters and Hathaway reads out the titles of the chapters after their numbers, while the Blackstone version has only five navigable super audiobook chapters, so that when you click the fast forward or rewind button you end up several chapters ahead or behind rather than just one, and Fields only reads out chapter numbers rather than titles and numbers together.

Like many of the reviews posted on Audible, I have mixed feelings about Hathaway's reading. She mostly does a fine, fun job with the different characters' different voices. The Scarecrow is funny and scratchy (sure, he does sound a bit like a hyper Marge Simpson, but Marge's voice is not a bad one to recall); the Tin Woodman is sensitive; the Cowardly Lion deep and blustery and a little New York or New Jersey-ish; the Mouse Queen cute and squeaky; the Wicked Witch old and wicked; Oz feckless; Dorothy sweet. . . I suppose you could complain about her Stork sounding like a storky-valley girl, the pseudo-British King of the Flying Monkeys rolling too many of his Rs, the Guard of the Gates of the Emerald City sounding oddly Daffy Duckish (especially when he says "spectacles"), and the Hammer-Heads sounding a bit too much like the Scarecrow, but, hey, Hathaway does her best to give each character a distinctive feel, and I enjoyed most of them.

The problem for me was her over-reading too many of the third person narrator's lines, becoming, for instance, too breathy, fast, and excited when reading exciting parts of the story. In Chapter 1 Dorothy and Toto have been carried up into the air in their house on the cyclone, and although at first the scene has been exciting and scary, with Hathaway (perhaps over-dramatically) inflecting her voice for greater urgency, one paragraph ends calmly with the cyclone carrying the house "miles and miles away as easily as you could carry a feather." When the next sentence begins, "It was very dark, and the wind howled horribly around her," Hathaway briefly resumes her hyper danger mode, even though that same sentence ends, "but Dorothy found she was riding quite easily," and its paragraph ends, "she felt as if she were being rocked gently, like a baby in a cradle," for which Hathaway uses an extra sweet calm mood. Her vocal mood shifts sound too much right next to each other, and a sentence that ends calmly should be read from the beginning calmly, even if the first phrase of the sentence indicates some horribly howling wind, because the context before and after that howling wind is not scary. In short, Hathaway over-reads much of the narration, which detracted from the listening experience, making me think at times, as some reviewers have said, of Anne Hathaway rather than of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Finally, it comes down to preference. If you like the reader of an audiobook to *perform* different voices and moods and so on like an actor (tellingly, the Audible title is "Anne Hathaway Performs The Wonderful Wizard of Oz"), you should listen to Hathaway. If you only want to hear a person with a pleasant voice, accurate pronunciation, and sensitive and smooth pace read a good book, you should listen to Anna Fields. Hathaway is strutting her actress stuff, mostly enjoyably (because she obviously enjoys the story), but although kids probably prefer her different character voices and high-tension narration, I prefer Anna Fields' more subtle differences between characters and more even-keeled and natural narrative voice.

the movie is a classic, but only for the music

what an incredible story! and the performance by the narrator was incredible. after listening to this book, it is going on my list of read out loud bedtime stories for my four children.

Great narrator and great story

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Heck yeah!!! It's a classic that everyone should read. Way different from the movie and so much better

What did you like best about this story?

That it was different from the movie.

What does Anne Hathaway bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

She did a great job doing the different voices and acting them out through her words. It was just plain great

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

No, not really just amazed me that it was different from the movie.

Anne hathway!

Very great a lovely story
I love it ha ha a good perform by anne hathway

Engaging and very enjoyable!

The story is very good but the narrator is simply WONDERFUL!
To be honest, I bought it for my children to listen to, but I was captivated by the well done narration myself!
Buy it! You'll be glad that you did!

the wonderful wizard of oz

First book I ever heard liked very much. Will get more books to hear. Liked Anne's voice ..

Wow!

I hate to compare a book to it's movie but I can't help it with this one. They are two completely different stories! There are many similarities, but there are just as many differences. The Wizard of Oz is one of those classic films that many of us have seen several times and know almost all the details of the movie. Listening to the book was quite a shock! Great book! I think I may check out the rest of the Oz books. Anne Hathaway did an excellent job with the narration!

Anne does a great job

We've all read this as kids so no need to talk about the story. Good narration.

Wonderful so skillfully narrated

A wonderful story narrated in a very vivid and sweet manner. You can picture the whole story and convey all the feelings listening to Miss Hathaway