WARSAW — “The Wizardry of Oz: L. Frank Baum” with Dr. Elliot Engel was a presentation of Baum’s life from riches to rags, back to riches and then back to rags. Engel provided a humorous presentation to guests at the 14th Annual Kosciusko Literacy Services Author Dinner Thursday evening in Warsaw.

“I will try to convince you this is the single greatest fairy tale ever written,” Engel stated in his 14^th presentation for the literacy services. “The Wizard of Oz is the greatest American Fairy Tale ever written.”

Dr. Elliot Engel tells the “Wizardry of Oz: L. Frank Baum” Thursday evening the annual Kosciusko Literacy Services Author Dinner.

He told of the life of Lyman Frank Baum, the wealth of the family, Baum’s interest in theater, owning a playhouse and loosing it to fire, taking his first play on the road and running out of money in Kansas. Engel highlights how the Emerald City came into being while in South Dakota and the family’s move to Chicago, where The Wizard of Oz was created and published.

The first royalty check, after eight weeks totaled $3,432. The money poured in. “Everybody loved it from the beginning,” stated Engel. Greedy publishers wanting to sell more books asked Mark Twain, the only other children’s author of the time to write a positive review, to sell books faster.

Jealous the book made more than his story of Huckleberry Finn ever had, the review was written in the classic Mark Twain manor. “ ‘The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum is definitely the greatest children’s story in the entire 20^th century,’ it came out Jan. 11, 1900,” stated Engel.

Baum had gone from riches to rags and back to riches. In 1902 with the start of Vaudeville, a scene from the Wizard of Oz would be presented. He took the money and invested in multi-media and attempted to show the story through slide show. It was a disaster. Five years later he lost every penny. He moved to Hollywood in 1912 and was one of its first citizens.

Two years before the movie industry debuts, he signed away all future royalties in perpetuity to the Wizard of Oz. But he went on to write nine more squeals before he died at the age of 63, in 1919.

Engel told how the Wizard of Oz came to be the biggest money maker of all time and explained why it became the single greatest American Fairy Tale.

Engel stated those reasons were: the entire plot depended upon a tornado, which is popular only in America; the Kansas replica of the Wizard was a snake oil salesman unknown in any other country; Dorothy had the three qualities of American virtues: shrewdness, bravery and kindness and finally as Americans, there is no place like home as “our castle is our home. You can’t do better than where you came from.”

Prior to the presentation Cindy Cates, executive director, spoke on the importance of preschool literacy citing research and noting nationally, 61 percent of low income homes have no reading material in their homes for children. The local Read to Grow Children’s Book Club is changing in the county. In 2015, Kosciusko Literacy Services placed 6,717 books with 978 children.

“Children need books in their homes, parents need to read regularly to their pre-school age children … The fact that literacy begins during preschool years is what the research tells and what Read to Grow Children’s Book Club has proven.”