Many adults today think J.K. Rowling should have followed Baum's example instead of writing the death of a sympathetic character into "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," the first of several dark moments to come in the series, according to the author. Rowling, however, remains adamant that to pretend that loss, pain and fear aren't a part of life would be to weaken and trivialize her series, and she need look no further than Baum's Oz books for a cautionary example.

There is wickedness in Oz, but no evil; badness is simply a disagreeable temperament certain people have, not a terrible force at work in the world, certainly never a temptation to any of the heroes. Character is fixed, and no one really changes. Dorothy remains exactly the same, "a simple, sweet and true little girl," throughout the entire series, and at the end of their adventures, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion learn that they were already smart, kindhearted and brave. The answer to life's perplexities is to realize how terrific you already are, an aspect of Oz that seems one of its most American traits.

Then there's the universal narcissism of the characters. Social conversation in Oz consists almost entirely of creatures explaining themselves to each other. It weirdly resembles the brandishing of identity credentials seen in certain graduate seminars, with "as a working-class lesbian ..." replaced by "as a scarecrow ..." In a typical disquisition, the straw man announces, "I am never hungry, and it is a lucky thing I am not. For my mouth is only painted, and if I should cut a hole in it so I could eat, the straw I am stuffed with would come out, and that would spoil the shape of my head."

Whatever makes Americans want to go on national television to natter on about the joys and trials of being a transvestite or a born-again Christian stripper obviously predates the mass media. (Perhaps Baum picked up this way of talking while he was working as a traveling salesman?) The Ozian symphony of self-involvement reaches its crescendo when the Wizard's true identity has been revealed and the four pilgrims lament their dashed hopes. "I pray you not to speak of these little things," the humbug interrupts. "Think of me, and the terrible trouble I'm in at being found out."

Oz is also, with a creepy prescience, a nation where personality determines politics. A little girl becomes a princess or a tin woodman is suddenly made Emperor of the Winkies simply because "the people" -- an indistinguishable mass of plump, contented burghers -- are "so fond" of them. The fatuous, Rotarian club notion of "goodness" Baum advances is, like the wickedness of his villains, a disposition rather than a practice, and its fruits are given rather than won; likability is all it amounts to.

The literary gulf between "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" and "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" is partly a matter of sheer talent; Baum never wrote a deft sentence, while Lewis excelled at them. Hearn touts a scene in which the Scarecrow, gathering nuts for Dorothy to eat, finds the little objects hard to pick up with his clumsy, padded fingers, as an example of "how skillfully Baum fills his tale with little easily missed but defining items which vividly bring his characters to life." A friend of Baum's once described him as having a "strong leaning towards technical matters," and that's what Hearn's "defining item" regarding the scarecrow is: engineering as character. Compare it with this scene in which Lewis' four child protagonists, led in their desperate flight from the White Witch by a talking beaver, reach a frozen river with a dam built across it:

They noticed that [Mr. Beaver] now had a sort of modest expression on his face -- the sort of look people have when you are visiting a garden they've made or reading a story they've written. So it was only common politeness when Susan said, "What a lovely dam!" And Mr. Beaver didn't say "Hush" this time but "Merely a trifle! Merely a trifle! And it isn't really finished!"

Maya Angelou reads from "The Heart of a Woman"