{
    "id": 368216,
    "slug": "finding-dorothy",
    "nstc": null,
    "title": "Finding dorothy",
    "subtitle": null,
    "collection_title": null,
    "collection_part_number": null,
    "annotation": null,
    "description": "<b>This richly imagined novel tells the story behind <i>The Wonderful Wizard of Oz</i>, the book that inspired the iconic film, through the eyes of author L. Frank Baum&rsquo;s intrepid wife, Maud.</b><br><br><b>&ldquo;A breathtaking read that will transport you over the rainbow and into the heart of one of America&rsquo;s most enduring fairy tales.&rdquo;&mdash;Lisa Wingate, author of&#160;<i>Before We Were Yours</i></b><br><br> Hollywood, 1938: As soon as she learns that M-G-M is adapting her late husband&rsquo;s masterpiece for the screen, seventy-seven-year-old Maud Gage Baum sets about trying to finagle her way onto the set. Nineteen years after Frank&rsquo;s passing, Maud is the only person who can help the producers stay true to the spirit of the book&mdash;because she&rsquo;s the only one left who knows its secrets.<br><br> But the moment she hears Judy Garland rehearsing the first notes of &ldquo;Over the Rainbow,&rdquo; Maud recognizes the yearning that defined her own life story, from her youth as a suffragette&rsquo;s daughter to her coming of age as one of the first women in the Ivy League, from her blossoming romance with Frank to the hardscrabble prairie years that inspired&#160;<i>The Wonderful Wizard of Oz</i>. Judy reminds Maud of a young&#160;girl she cared for and tried to help in South Dakota, a dreamer who never got her happy ending. Now, with the young actress under pressure from the studio as well as her ambitious stage mother, Maud resolves to protect her&mdash;the way she tried so hard to protect the real Dorothy.<br><br> The author of two<i> New York Times </i>bestselling nonfiction books<i>, The Eighty-Dollar Champion</i> and <i>The Perfect Horse</i>, Elizabeth Letts is a master at discovering and researching a rich historical story and transforming it into a page-turner. <i>Finding Dorothy</i> is the result of Letts&rsquo;s journey into the amazing lives of Frank and Maud Baum. Written as fiction but based closely on the truth, Elizabeth Letts&rsquo;s new book tells a story of love, loss, inspiration, and perseverance, set in America&rsquo;s heartland.<br><br><b>Praise for </b><i><b>Finding Dorothy</b></i><br><br>&ldquo;In some ways reminiscent of Jerry Stahl&rsquo;s excellent&#160;<i>I, Fatty</i>,&#160;Letts&rsquo;&#160;<i>Finding Dorothy</i>&#160;combines exhaustive research with expansive imagination, blending history and speculation into&#160;a seamless tapestry. . . .&#160;It&rsquo;s a testament to Letts&rsquo; skill that she can capture on the page, without benefit of audio, that same emotion we have all felt sometime over the last 80 years while listening to &lsquo;Over the Rainbow.&rsquo;&rdquo;<b>&mdash;<i>BookPage</i>&#160;(starred review)</b>",
    "imprint": null,
    "language_code": "eng",
    "original_language_code": null,
    "page_count": 384,
    "duration_seconds": null,
    "publication_date_first": "2019-12-03",
    "publication_date_latest": "2019-12-03",
    "cover_url": null,
    "editions": [
        {
            "isbn": "9780525622116",
            "product_form": "BC"
        }
    ],
    "ratings_count": 0,
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    "rating_average": null,
    "ratings_distribution": {
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    },
    "created_at": "2025-09-19T13:31:10+00:00",
    "updated_at": "2025-10-29T00:29:46+00:00",
    "publisher": {
        "id": 4199,
        "slug": "ballantine",
        "name": "Ballantine",
        "created_at": "2025-09-19T13:08:55+00:00",
        "updated_at": "2025-09-19T15:10:07+00:00"
    },
    "contributors": [],
    "genres": [],
    "subjects": [
        {
            "scheme_identifier": "32",
            "scheme_version": null,
            "main_subject": false,
            "subject_code": "300",
            "created_at": "2025-09-19T13:31:10+00:00",
            "updated_at": "2025-09-19T13:31:10+00:00"
        }
    ]
}