Growing up, I read all 14 books in the original Oz books. The recent meme around #2 has me re-reading them, and I’m shocked at how well they hold up. Women-centered, full of strong female rulers and all-female armies (actually two, one more serious than the other). There’s some “beauty=thin=good” stuff and a handful of gendered comments. But they are decent cozy fairy stories with female main characters. Written in 1900-1919 and available for free on Project Gutenberg.
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Also the charming drawings in them are so delightful. Ozma and Glinda are basically art nouveau princesses.
Technically I’m only up to #4, so maybe they turn yucky later, though I remember “Glinda of Oz” (#14) being one of my favorites after “Ozma of Oz,” which has the most charming talking chicken. They’re also super quick reads now as an adult.
Update: Book 4, “Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz,” is significantly less good than 2 & 3 in the Oz series. Mostly because it has the wizard in it, and he’s an adult male with the sensibilities of a dude and huckster in the early 1900s. He’s just not that interesting a character. Dorothy has a cat in it, which is a cute nod to us cat people, but that’s so far the only redeeming factor. 😂
