2019 Book Review #13: Finding Dorothy

Historical fiction at its finest!

This author is new to me although I've seen her name on the internet connected with best-sellers.

The title grabbed me because I had a feeling it was going to be about the Wizard of Oz...I was right!

STORY SUMMARY 

It is 1938 and Maud Baum is in Hollywood because she has learned that M-G-M is going to be adapting her late husband's (L. Frank Baum) masterpiece into a film.  She is 77 years old and is determined to find a way to get onto the set.  It has been 19 years since Frank died, and she wants to make sure that Hollywood...specifically,  the producers, stay true to the book.....and she's the only one who knows all the secrets as to how and why this book was written!

As soon as Maud hears Judy Garland, who is going to play Dorothy, sing "Over the Rainbow" in a rehearsal, Maud recognizes the deep yearning that defined her own life....as a child being raised by a suffragette mother to her "coming of age" as one of the first group of women to attend an Ivy League School (Cornell in Ithaca, NY)...to her budding romance with Frank an actor who had a huge imagination,  to the hard years raising a young family on the prairie of Dakota....all of these things inspired the writing of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Judy Garland reminds Maud of a very little girl she helped care for in South Dakota....a little girl who was a dreamer...but who never got a happy ending.

This new young actress, about to play this important role of Dorothy, is under a lot of pressure from the directors and producers, and her very ambitious stage mother. Maud is determined to protect Judy....the same way she tried to protect the real Dorothy.

MY THOUGHTS

This book was based on much historical research that the author conducted about M-G-M, Frank Baum and his family as well as Maud's suffragette mother Matilda Gage who was a contemporary of Susan B Anthony and  Elizabeth Cady Stanton.  Maud really did have a sibling named Julie who was married to an alcoholic and lived a hard life, losing one baby in infancy and raising little Magdalena (who had an imaginary friend named Dorothy).  I don't want to spoil the entire book so won't go into details here about Maud's life.

 I absolutely thought it was brilliant that the author tied in some well known scenes into the story of Frank and Maud......it really made this book precious.

Baum vision of Kansas was based on his experience living in Aberdeen, which at that time was in the Dakota Territory.  

The book goes back and forth between 1938/1939 and the late 1880s when Maud and Frank were raising their family.

One of my fave parts was in the author's  notes in the back of the book.  She talks about Judy Garland and some of the horrible things she endured as an actress in this movie.  "Over the Rainbow" was Judy's signature song, but tragically, Judy Garland  never did find that peace for herself.  Her words were 

"I tried my damndest to believe in the rainbow that I tried to get over and I couldn't."

"And yet, it was her role as Dorothy and her rendition of "Over the Rainbow" (Which was almost cut from the movie!!) that cememted her place in immortality." (pg 348, Finding Dorothy by Elizabeth Letts, c. 2019)

If your children love the musical/film The Wizard of Oz and read the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and loved it (there are actually 6 books in the series), and you did, too, then read this book!

It's a gem of historical fiction.

In my opinion, this book is appropriate for ages 17 and older (due to some content)

On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, I rate this a 10.