In a small grey farmhouse on the great flat prairie of Kansas, there lived a girl named Dorothy. She lived with her Aunt Em and her Uncle Henry, and her little dog Toto, and not very much else. The land around the farm was grey. The sky was grey. The grass was grey. Even Aunt Em's face had become grey from the long flat years.

Toto was not grey. Toto was small and black and had bright eyes that always seemed to be laughing at something only Toto could see. Dorothy loved him very much.

One day, a great wind came across the prairie. It was the kind of wind they called a cyclone, which is a storm so big it can pick a whole house up off the ground and carry it away. Aunt Em ran for the storm cellar. Uncle Henry shouted at Dorothy to follow. But Toto had got under the bed, and Dorothy could not leave him behind.

She crawled under the bed to fetch Toto. She got him in her arms. She tried to climb out.

The wind got there first.

The whole house rose up off the prairie. Dorothy felt it lifting. She felt it spinning. She held Toto tightly and lay down on her bed, because there did not seem to be anything else she could do.

The house turned in the air for a long time. Then, very slowly, it began to come down again.

When it landed, Dorothy got up. She opened the door of the small grey farmhouse and looked out.

The grey was gone.

Everything was green and yellow and bright pink and blue. There were flowers everywhere. There was a sky like a painting. There was a stream that sang as it ran. And there were small people, smaller than Dorothy, all dressed in blue, who came running toward the house with very great surprise on their faces.

This, Dorothy soon learned, was not Kansas. This was a country called Oz.

And the people of Oz had a problem they very much hoped Dorothy could fix.

The Munchkins, which is what the small blue people were called, told Dorothy that her house had landed on a wicked witch. The witch was now squashed under it. The Munchkins were very pleased about this. They said it was the best thing that had happened in their country for a hundred years.

Dorothy was sorry about the witch, although it sounded like the witch had not been a particularly good person.

What Dorothy wanted, very much, was to go home.

A good witch came, an old kind one in white, and she told Dorothy that the only way home was to follow a yellow brick road, all the way to a great Emerald City, where a wizard lived who could send her back to Kansas. She gave Dorothy the silver shoes that had belonged to the wicked witch. They fit Dorothy's feet perfectly, which is the way magic shoes always work.

Dorothy started down the yellow brick road.

She had not gone very far when she met a scarecrow on a pole in a cornfield. The scarecrow was made of straw and had a face painted on a sack and was, very politely, asking to be lifted down. Dorothy lifted him down. He came with her, because he had no brain, and he had been told that the wizard might give him one.

A little later, in a forest, she met a man made entirely of tin. He had been standing in the rain so long that he had rusted into one position. Dorothy oiled his joints. He came with her, because he had no heart, and he had been told that the wizard might give him one.

A little later still, a great lion sprang out of the trees. Dorothy expected to be eaten. Instead, the lion burst into tears, because he was afraid of everything, including small girls. He came with her, because he had no courage, and he had been told that the wizard might give him some.

So Dorothy walked the yellow brick road with a scarecrow who wanted a brain, and a tin man who wanted a heart, and a lion who wanted courage, and a small black dog called Toto, who wanted nothing at all and was happy to go wherever Dorothy went.

The road was not always easy. There were dangerous fields, and dark forests, and a wicked sister-witch who sent monkeys after them, and many times when Dorothy thought they would not make it at all.

But every time something terrible happened, the scarecrow had a clever idea, and the tin man did something kind, and the lion stood in the way of something dangerous, even when he was shaking the whole time.

This was strange, when you thought about it. The scarecrow had no brain. He kept coming up with ideas anyway. The tin man had no heart. He kept doing kind things anyway. The lion had no courage. He kept protecting his friends anyway.

By the time they reached the Emerald City, all four of them had walked a very long way together.

When they finally got in to see the wizard, after a great deal of trouble, they discovered that the wizard was not really a wizard at all. He was a small old man from another country, who had landed in Oz the same way Dorothy had, in a balloon that had blown off course. He had been pretending to be a great wizard ever since, because the people of Oz had wanted one so badly.

He was not unkind. He was just not magic.

He looked at the four of them, and he saw what was in front of him.

He gave the scarecrow a paper full of pins, and told him these were brains. He gave the tin man a small silk heart, and told him this was a heart. He gave the lion a drink from a green bottle, and told him this was courage.

The scarecrow felt clever. The tin man felt loving. The lion felt brave.

The wizard had not given them anything they did not already have. He had only given them permission to notice it.

But there was nothing the wizard could give Dorothy. He could not send her home. He had no idea how. He offered to take her in his balloon, but the balloon flew away without her, by accident, leaving Dorothy in Oz with her three friends and her small black dog and no way home at all.

Dorothy cried for a while. Then she stopped crying, because crying did not help. She set out again, this time to find another good witch, in another country, who might know what to do.

That witch, when at last they found her, looked at Dorothy's feet and laughed gently.

"My dear," she said, "you have had the way home all along. Your silver shoes will carry you wherever you wish to go. You only had to know how to use them."

Dorothy looked at the shoes she had been wearing the whole way. They had not changed. She had changed.

She said goodbye to the scarecrow, who would stay in Oz and rule a kingdom now. She said goodbye to the tin man, who would stay and rule another. She said goodbye to the lion, who would go back to the forest and be king there. She held Toto in her arms.

She clicked the silver shoes together three times.

She thought about Aunt Em. She thought about Uncle Henry. She thought about the small grey farmhouse on the great flat prairie. She thought about all the people she loved most, who were not in Oz at all.

She said the words.

"There is no place like home."

The wind came up. The world spun. Toto held very still in her arms.

When she opened her eyes, she was lying in the long grass beside the new farmhouse, and Aunt Em was running toward her with tears on her grey face, and Toto was barking, and the sky was the same flat Kansas sky, and Dorothy had never been so happy in all her life.

She had walked all the way to a wizard to find what she was looking for. The wizard had not been able to give it to her. She had had to find her own way.

But she had been carrying it the whole time.