L. Frank Baum chose a daringly original setting for his fairy story The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: a naturalistically portrayed poor farm on the dry, treeless prairie of Kansas, in the midwestern United States. He used the word gray nine times in his first few paragraphs: for the landscape, the house, and finally the people. The only exceptions to the gray hopelessness are a little girl, Dorothy, and her little black dog, Toto.
A cyclone, a common occurrence in Kansas, takes up their house, with them inside, and carries them to a beautiful new land. Dorothy is shocked to learn that the nice old lady she meets there is a witch, until the lady reassures her that she is a good witch. She suggests that Dorothy ask …
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