You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed,

for you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read. Hi, this is Michael Silverblatt, and this is

Bookworm on KCRW today. In 1890, El Frank Baum sent the Wizard of Oz to the printers. In 1900,

it was published and was El Frank Baum's first great success.

In 1939, the MGM Picture Company released a film, The Wizard of Oz, a film we've all come to know and love.

And so this year, 1989, marks the 50th anniversary of that movie.

The celebration of that movie.

Celebration of this anniversary is continuing apace, and the season is being marked by several publishing events, as well as film events.

The primary treasures, the reissue of Al Jean Harmets' book, The Making of the Wizard of Oz, from Delta,

but also being published for the very first time is the screenplay of the Wizard of Oz, edited by Michael

Patrick Hearn, also from Delta.

There's a rather sumptuous coffee table book, a 50th anniversary pictorial history coming

out from Warner Books, as well as a picture book about the Munchkins. MGMUA video promises

a new home video of the Wizard of Oz, which will contain the sections that have been retrieved

of Buddy Ebson's first stint as the scarecrow as well as bits of the jitterbug song that was cut before the movie opened

different bits and fillets and snips of a movie that we've all come

to love.

My favorite of these anniversary celebrations is, as I said, the making of the Wizard of Oz

by Al Jean Hermetz. The book first came out in 1977. I read it hungrily then, reading it again now. I found myself,

now a resident of Los Angeles, equally dazzled by it because I knew so many more of the events.

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