Toto's Tale by K. D. Hayes

Have you ever wanted to get into the mind of Toto from the Wizard of Oz and see what he thought?  Well, now is your chance.  Mother/Daughter authors, Hays & Weidman, have put together this book from Toto's perspective.  Yep, that's right, from a dog's eye view see what it was like to be in Kansas then find your house on top of a Witch miles away and who knows where, head down the brick road and meet all the Oz characters from Toto's world in this fantasy book, Toto's Tale.  What a fun read-a-loud to have time with your kids and then watch the movie and compare the two.  You'll want to keep turning the page to see Toto's view on the whole ordeal.  What really went through Toto's mind no one will ever know, but we can imagine what it would be like, that is what Hays and Weidman do. This was a very fun book to read.  It is geared toward your middle school group.  The tweenys 4-6th grade around about. 

Read an EXCERPT here.

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 Toto the terrier and his pet girl Dorothy have their world turned upside down by a cyclone that rips their house from ground and spins it into the land of Oz. In this strange place, cats grow way bigger than they should and they speak the same language as Dorothy. So now Dorothy spends her time talking to a giant cat, a walking scarecrow, and a hollow man made of metal.

The five of them follow a brick road to see the Great Lizard who is supposed to give them something. Although Toto is hoping for a pork chop, he will settle for a trip back to Kansas. But when they reach the Great Lizard (who turns out to be a big human head), instead of helping them, he sends them out to kill a witch.

Toto enables them to survive attacks by killer bees and mad wolves, but the annoying monkeys with wings prove too much even for him, and the monkeys are able to carry him and Dorothy to the witch’s castle.

Once there, he realizes the witch is after the shoes that Dorothy picked up when they first landed in Oz. He also realizes that the witch can be destroyed with water. It becomes a race to see if the witch can trick Dorothy into giving up the shoes before Toto figures out how to melt her.

But even if he destroys the witch, they still have to figure out how to get home…

K.D. Hays and Meg Weidman are a mother-daughter team who aspire to be professional roller coaster riders and who can tell you exactly what not to put in your pockets when you ride El Toro at Six Flags. Meg is studying art in a middle school magnet program. For fun, she jumps on a precision jump rope team and reads anything not associated with school work. K.D. Hays, who writes historical fiction under the name Kate Dolan, has been writing professionally since 1992. She holds a law degree from the University of Richmond and consequently hopes that her children will pursue studies in more prestigious fields such as plumbing or waste management. They live in a suburb of Baltimore where the weather is ideally suited for the four major seasons: riding roller coasters in the spring and fall, waterslides in the summer and snow tubes in the winter. Although Meg resents the fact that her mother has dragged her to every historical site within a 200-mile radius, she will consent to dress in colonial garb and participate in living history demonstrations if she is allowed to be a laundry thief.

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You can visit their website at www.totostale.com.

A copy of this book was provided for review by Virtual Book tours