The Wonderful Wizard of huh?

This ain't right, Ma.

Okay, so let me just get this out there right now - someone else took this picture, I didn't do it. Someone else gets credit for it, but I don't know who. Please don't prosecute me for using it. If the powers of Oz have an issue with me using it, please take it up with the dudes at Google and make sure they disable the right click "Save As" feature.

If you've been reading along, you know that the boys and I read The Wizard of Oz and finished sometime last week. I had told the boys all along that we'd watch the movie when we finished it. Secretly, I had a lesson plan all cooked up - read the book, watch the movie, and then discuss the differences. Let me say right here and now, I could go on and on and on about how different the movie is from Baum's book. It's nearly absurd. But, that's neither here nor there. However, should anyone want to discuss it, lemme know and we'll dish.

At any rate, the second we saw Dorothy on the screen, Stealth (yes, my three year old) says, "Um, Mom, what's going on in that farm - where's the cyclone?" Ah ha! He's right - the book starts almost immediately with the cyclone - there's no freaking song, no chase, no falling in the pig pen, no Miss Gulch. None of it. Within minutes, however, my kids were hooked.

20 minutes in, Duck looked at B and said, "Cool movie, huh Dad? But, you know, it's totally different."

The rest of the movie went about that same way.

Kids pay attention. They soak up every little thing. Half the time we were reading, Stealth would be crawling on the floor, playing with a truck. Duck stared into space. There was a lot, and I mean A LOT, of nose picking going on with those two while I was reading. But they heard and absorbed every word.

After the movie was over, Duck said to me, "Mom, that movie was really cool, but it scared me in some parts. I never want to watch it again. But, where's the book? Mom, I want to read it again."

I looked at him, handed him the book, and I was over the rainbow myself.