The Compleat And Actual Adventures of Marcella White Campbell

When I was four years old, I lived, briefly, with my mother and stepfather, in a tiny house near Lake Merritt. It was a cottage with hardwood floors, painted pale blue. Coming, as I did, from the City, I was enchanted by the trellis covered in fragrant honeysuckle, and the bamboo in the yard that seemed to grow at least a foot every day. It was a short and magical time, a respite between scarier events, and no time could have been better for me to discover my first literary heroine: Dorothy Gale.

I was an early reader, and my mother gave me a copy of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), with the original W. W. Denslow illustrations, to read on my own, likely on my belly, kicking my feet on the hardwood floors.

Dorothy and I were fast friends. As imagined by Denslow, she’s a grave, chubby little girl, struggling through dangers that would send a full-grown Hero packing. She is preternaturally wise, nearly unflappable, trapped in the sort of fairyland where none of the adults are reliable and your best allies are the creatures you’d least expect – scarecrows, tin men, lions, and scrappy little mutts.

Dorothy makes a journey worthy of Odysseus, through the valley of darkness and home again, without losing her faith or her humility. After a lifetime’s worth of adventures, the only time she breaks down and cries is after weeks of enslavement by the Witch of the West, and, even then, she keeps her wits about her enough to sneak her only remaining friend – the Cowardly Lion – food and comfort.

In the same way that P. L. Travers’ Mary Poppins loses her sharp wit in the translation to the big screen, the Hollywood Dorothy is not much like the literary Dorothy Gale. Dorothy of the movie only shows spunk to protect others; Dorothy Gale, over the course of the fourteen-book Oz series, stands up for herself. She’s not too good to be true; she’s a regular good person, impatient with people lacking in common sense, and a survivor whose intelligence and confidence – not some implausibly perfect goodness – help her to land on her feet in impossible situations.

Dorothy is partial to cryptic Kansas aphorisms that illustrate her core set of values. She is invariably brave, even when faced with the hilariously evil Nome King or the possibility of her beloved Fairyland’s annihilation. She becomes, by the end of the series, a fairyland Princess in her own right, an arbiter of justice, a protector of the weak.

In short, plenty of modern-day adult heroines could learn from Dorothy. Not the worst role model for a dreamy four-year-old, and not bad for 1900.

Suggested works:

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Project Gutenberg etext)

Ozma of Oz (Project Gutenberg etext)

The Road to Oz (Project Gutenberg etext)