The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Anne Hathaway's great voice work compelled me to love the audio edition over the print version.

A tie between Cowardly Lion & Wizard .

Meeting Wizard .

I laughed repeatedly .

Hathaway truly needs to do more voice work . Anne did the impossible, she made something old , feel new and fresh again. She has wonderful vocal skills , and she has that gift to naturally create different voices- masculine or feminine . Anne made all these characters feel real, relatable, and entertaining . Plus, Anne has that rare gift that cannot be taught - charisma. This is truly one of the best audiobook readings I have heard in years.

Anne Hathaway did a good job with so many different voices but I had a hard time with the voice of the Scarecrow because it sounded like Marge Simpson. Listen to the sample on audible then go to youtube and listen to Marge Simpson it was too close to being the same voice I just couldn’t picture the Scarecrow in my head because the voice was Marge! That was the main voice that was just wrong and it took me out of the story, the rest of her voices were good with a few being annoying and some just not fitting, like a valley girl voice just seemed out of place. I guess I liked her narration overall I just wish the Scarecrow had sounded different.I would recommend this audiobook even with Marge Simpson cast as the Scarecrow! Anne does bring many voices to the mix maybe at times too many because some of them don’t seem to belong in the land of Oz but what do I know I’ve never been there!...

As I listened to this I came to the realization that I have never read Wizard of Oz before, yes I know I was shocked too. This story was a bit more violent in parts than I was expecting also there were some huge differences from the movie we have all seen 1,000 times so I had to try to get the movie out of my head and just go with the story, which I did enjoy. But in the end you can’t help comparing the differences…the shoes (silver, not red)...Toto (black, not brown) …Dorothy is a much younger girl…the violence, there is a lot of lopping off of heads that I did not expect..Also the witches seem to play a much smaller part in this than they did in the movie.

Everyone knows the premise of this story there are over 3000+ reviews and 98,000+ ratings on Goodreads alone so really what am I going to add other than if you think you have read this book but aren’t sure give it a try you may be like I was and realize you have never read the story Baum wrote, you only know the Hollywood version!

3 1/2 Stars

I would recommend this in a heartbeat. The story had gotten old for me after so many years but Anne manages to breathe life into the characters more so than any version of the movie I have ever seen.

The initial scene where they meet Oz. I don't know how she came up with that particular voice for him (apparently, she doesn't either if you've seen the video clip of her talking about doing the narration) but I think it fits the character well.

I certainly would have if I'd had the chance.

Give it a shot. You'll be surprised how much you enjoy a story you've probably already experienced numerous times.

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.

mos def

Anne is amazing .. you almost live the story .. and her performance is so amusing I laughed so heartily at many many times

her performance for sure .. so lively

yes .. when Anne was reading the tin mans parts .. she translates the feelings perfectly

highly recommended ..

I love Anne Hathaway as an actress. She did a horrifyingly bad job of narrating this lovely story. The voices she created for the various characters were strange and didn't fit with the story at all. And some of them were just unlistenable. I found myself eager for the audiobook to be over. Very disappointing.

I am normally a *huge* Anne Hathaway fan, however, I felt she went way over the top dramatizing this performance. In scenes where absolutely nothing is happening, she starts gasping and dramatizing as if the world is coming to an end. She does this multiple times throughout the story in all of the wrong places. Also, nearly every character she did had a New York accent or a valley girl accent which just made this classic story sound ridiculous. Marge Simpson with a New York accent crawled into the scarecrows body, and I'm permanently scarred. lolNormally, I would enjoy her attempts to breathe new life into a classic story, but she went way overboard with this one and lost me. Even my 11 year old daughter thought the whole thing sounded odd and that the narrator was just distracting from the story. I think that's really the key to what went wrong - instead of presenting the story and letting it stand on its own merit, she tried to take center stage and failed.

Dorothy sees Wizard!

This story is very different than the movie and stage play. There are a lot of different characters and more adventures for Dorothy and her friends that didn't make it to the movie. There are several sequels in this series and each story builds on the next. Very good!

Good first start.

Kansas vs. Oz?

I liked Anne Hathaway's performance for the most part. The only suggestions I would make is to leave out the valley girl character and the french maid accent. Doesn't fit in Oz.

Would buy Frank's books, just not not read by Anne.

I thought the story was very fresh. It was very different from the movie we know and love. Anne tried to create memorable voices, but several turned out to be a 1980's 'valley girl' or some derivative thereof. Anne, I love your work, but this did not do it for me.

loved the book, not the reading

This is simply a delightful and classic story that I and my children (ages 9 & 6) have enjoyed. If you've only seen the film, you should treat yourself to the novel - though it is admittedly difficult not to judge the book in light of the epic film.

What I could not tolerate was Anne Hathaway's dreadful performance. Ideally the narration should complement the story, but not distract or steal from the author's words. Hathaway's performance is a complete distraction - to the point that you hope certain characters won't have anything else to say because you don't want to hear her needlessly over-the-top voicing. Why does the palace guard have a southern (US) accent? Why does another person have a French accent? It's all just too much.

Do yourself a favor and pick from the 5 or so other versions of Baum's classic on Audible.