Get your Signed copy today! Kindle Edition Download to your Nook (eBook) Amazon www.katedolan.com Category:  Young Adult/Teen Publisher: Zumaya Publications ISBN-10:  1936144611 Type: Fiction Pages: 248 Copyright: Aug 25, 2010 ISBN-13: 9781936144617 Price: $6.99 (eBook) Ever wonder what really happened in Oz? Find out from the one character who saw it all from the ground up... Everyone knows how Dorothy and Toto save Oz from the Wicked Witch of West…or do they? How will Dorothy survive in a land filled with haunted bags of straw, hollow metal men and giant smelly cats? How will she fight off killer bees, mad wolves and really annoying monkeys? How will she defeat a witch with mind control and an all-seeing eye? And how will Dorothy ever find the way home? The simple truth is that she won’t, at least not alone. Of course, she’s not alone – she has Toto, her best friend. That is, Toto used to be her best friend. But in Oz, Dorothy spends more time talking to a cat than to her. And Toto finds new friends, too. Maybe, he should just bring his wolf friends back to Kansas instead…       Excerpt “But what do you want?” he continued, speaking to Toto. Toto only wagged his tail; for, strange to say, he could not speak. — L. Frank Baum The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Chapter 1 I’d smelled fear on the humans all morning, and the stink was really getting on my nerves. I mean, we all knew a windstorm was coming, and it was going to be rough; but the humans didn’t have anything to worry about. They’d just go down into The Hole and wait till it was all over. It was the chickens who should have been worried. Their house was so flimsy it was likely to take off and fly away in the next windstorm. But chickens are too stupid to think about these things, so they weren’t worried yet. Meanwhile, Auntem gave off enough worry scent to cover every living thing in the entire state of Kansas, and as I said, the smell was pretty annoying. So, yeah, I knew I wasn’t supposed to chase the chickens, but I couldn’t help myself. When those lamebrained layers started bragging about which one of them could fly fastest, I decided to let them prove it. I took off after Eggy, baring my teeth like I was going to rip all the feathers out of her tail. It felt really good to run. It also felt good to get some revenge on the chickens. Ever since yesterday, when the nasty old neighbor tried to stab me with a pitchfork just for digging a little hole in her garden, everyone here had teased me for running home with my tail between my legs. They would have done the same thing—it was a big sharp pitchfork, and the neighbor is as mean as a wet cat. The chickens, in particular, had acted like I was the only one who had ever shown fear in the history of forever. Now I decided I’d put a little fear in the chickens so they could demonstrate why their name means being a coward. “Squahhhhh!” Eggy yelled as she ran across the farmyard with me right on her tail. “That giant rodent is going to eat me!” Her big fat feathered body bounced ridiculously from side to side as she dashed around on long spindly legs. “I thought you could fly,” I barked. “And you know I’m not a rodent.” I chased her into a corner between the water trough and the barn. “I can’t fly in this wind, you fool,” she squawked. “Excuses, excuses.” I got ready to pounce on her, but she turned fast and hopped out of the way. Then she ran straight for the henhouse. “Oh, no, you don’t,” I muttered as I shot after her. She would have to pay for that rodent remark. The other animals always make rude comments about my size, but I think they’re just jealous because I get to sleep in the house with the people. I’m small, yeah, but I’m a lot bigger than a rat. And I have a much nicer tail. “He’s coming this—squaaah!—way,” one of the other chickens shrieked. They had been pecking in the yard, trying to eat up all the loose bits of corn before they were blown away by the storm coming across the plains. Now, instead of eating, they scrambled frantically to get away from me, squawking and flapping and looking about as ruffled as they could possibly get. I loved it. I ran in circles, snapping occasionally to keep them moving. Then I saw one obnoxious old hen who had pecked at Dorothy’s ankle last week. I really did want to bite her. So, I opened my mouth extra-wide and headed straight for her big fat chicken butt. “Toto!” I had to stop when I heard that voice. It was Dorothy, my pet girl. “Stop something chickens, Toto,” she said. With her flat face and small mouth, she can’t really talk properly, but I still love her. Auntem and Unclehenry, the other people, are always making her work when what she really wants to do is roam the fields with me, chasing grasshoppers and digging for shiny beetles. She needs me to protect her from work. If you do too much work, you end up dull and sad like Auntem, or pinched and mean like the mean neighbor with the pitchfork. I want to protect my girl and keep her just the way she is. I love everything about my Dorothy, from the smell of her shoes to her sloppy habit of throwing things everywhere. She throws a stick or ball, and I have to go pick it up for her. Then, instead of putting it away, she just throws it someplace else, and I have to pick it up again. It makes no sense at all, and sometimes I get tired of cleaning up after her. Still, I love her, and I’ll do anything she asks. When I know what she’s asking, that is. I have to pay attention really hard to understand human speech, and usually, I don’t bother Right now, though, even if she didn’t use many real words, I could pretty much tell what she wanted me to do just from the tone of her voice and the way she looked at me, as if she wanted to tie me up like a shock of wheat and throw me into the barn loft. She was annoyed, and I could smell a little anger on her, too. But underneath it all, there seemed to be more fear than anything else. Fear of the storm, probably. With one last look at the fat old hen, I turned and trotted over to Dorothy. I wagged my tail and hoped she would pet me for a minute and that I could help her forget her fears about the increasing wind and the dark clouds growing like mountains in the sky. Maybe she would also forget I’d been trying to scare the chickens and that I’d chewed on one of her shoes this morning before breakfast. She would forget it all, and we’d just… It didn’t happen. She looked at me for a bit, like maybe she was going to pet me, but when she bent down, it was just so she could tuck a loose flap of leather back into her shoe. That piece of leather is always coming loose and tripping her, so she really should let me chew it off for her, but whenever I try, someone always stops me. “Dorothy!” Auntem barked as she stepped out of the back door of the house, “Something up something chickens.” She can’t talk any better than Dorothy. They practice a lot—it seems like they’re always barking about something—but their language is so different it’s difficult to translate into real words. Anyway, I guess Auntem had just told Dorothy to round up the hens, because that’s what she did. She ran around waving her arms, herding them all into the henhouse. I could have helped, but somehow I didn’t think she wanted me to run around after them again. So, instead, I trotted over to the barn to watch Unclehenry bring the cows and the horses inside. He was having a hard time holding the door open because the wind blew it closed. He kept turning to look over his shoulder, as if there were a monster behind him. But it was just dark clouds and grass bent low under the weight of the coming storm. The wind moaned almost like a voice as it gusted along the eaves of the barn. That sound made me shiver, and I had to admit I couldn’t wait until it was time to go into The Hole. The Hole is, well, a hole—dug out under the house—and since the house is very small, The Hole is even smaller. It’s not much bigger than the ones I dig out in the yard to bury my pork chop bones. But it’s deep and smells of worms and roots, a rich aroma that reminds me of underwear. It’s a damp, comforting place much more interesting than the hard dry ground above. So, I never mind the wind and storms, because I know they mean a visit to The Hole. With a loud thud, Unclehenry slammed the barn door shut and started toward the house with a lantern and pail of water. Maybe it was time already! I hurried to get Dorothy so we could go down into The Hole together. I couldn’t find her. The henhouse was closed up tight and sounded and smelled full of hens. I could tell Dorothy wasn’t in there. She couldn’t have gone into the barn, or I would have seen her. So, she must be in the people house. I pushed through the hole in the screen door, ran inside and headed straight for the door in the kitchen floor, expecting to see she was on her way down into The Hole. She wasn’t. Chapter 2 Auntem was crouched down inside The Hole, crying. “Toto!” Unclehenry yelled when he saw me. He reached out to grab my collar, but I twisted away from him. I had to find Dorothy, and I couldn’t do that if they pulled me into The Hole. Faintly, over the roar and moan of the wind, I could hear my name. Dorothy was calling me. She was out looking for me! I ran toward the sound of her voice—out the kitchen door, down the steps and into the yard. At first, I thought she was in the front yard, so I headed that way. But the wind roared and swirled, carrying her voice in every direction, along with clouds of dust and straw. It was getting harder to see with each passing second. I turned every which way, trying to find her scent or hear her call again. Then, just when I was afraid I’d never find her, I felt her arm around me. She scooped me up and carried me up onto the front porch. The wind pushed us back each step of the way. It seemed to take all Dorothy’s strength just to get to the door, and then, no matter how hard she tugged, it wouldn’t open. Wind whipped my hair into my eyes, and the roar made my head ache. The full fury of the storm was almost on us now, and instead of being safe inside the wonderful Hole, we were out on the porch being attacked by flying bits of straw. I barked and wriggled out of Dorothy’s arms to run to her bedroom window, which was open almost enough for us to crawl through. Dorothy was smart enough to understand right away what I wanted her to do. She pushed the window sash all the way up, set me inside then crawled in after me. For a moment, we just lay on the floor together panting. The wind still howled and moaned, but the walls protected us from the grass and straw that stung like bees. We weren’t in The Hole, but we were safe. Or so I thought. As the roar of the wind grew even louder, the whole house started shaking like it was tired of being attached to the ground and wanted to get up and move. That made both of us start crawling toward the kitchen so we could get down inside The Hole. Wind shrieked all around us like a demon, and the house was pitching and swaying so much it was hard to move forward. Just as we reached the kitchen, the house gave one huge lurch, and everything tipped sideways. The roar of the wind was almost drowned out by a horrible ripping sound, as if the ground were being torn into pieces. We tilted the other direction, and I slid into a cabinet full of crackers, soup cans and jars of pickled eggs. Food? The food cabinets were too high for me to reach. How could I be seeing crackers? It made no sense. Smells swirled by so fast the odor of henhouse poop mingled with the scent of the neighbor’s apple pie. I thought I was going crazy. How could I smell the neighbor’s pie when her house was 5280 steps away? When I looked out the window, I saw why. The pie was sort-of hovering outside our window. And that wasn’t the weird part. The weird part was that we were sort-of hovering above the ground. So was the henhouse. The hens were not amused. Their feathers stuck out at all angles, and half of them were upside down. An egg hit the windowsill, leaving a stringy, gooey mess that stretched in a long line as the house spun around. Some got stuck in my ear. After that, the roar of the wind became less noticeable because I was too busy trying to rub the egg mess off my head. Every few seconds, I had to stop to watch for more flying eggs. I watched for other flying things, too. After all, most of the smells of the farmyard don’t come from eggs. Dorothy wasn’t watching as closely as I was, and she got hit in the forehead with a grade-A extra-large. She cried out in pain, and I ran over to her to make sure she was alright. I rubbed against her knee—I’m not tall, and when she’s standing, that the highest part I can reach. She picked me up and held me against her cheek and whispered nonsense words. Together, we watched the chickens, hay, feathers and pie blow past the window over and over, like we were in the center of some weird merry-go-round. The house had risen up to the top of a swirling cloud, which should have been very scary. And it was…for a while. Dorothy clutched me tightly, and my hairs all stood up and got itchy. But things went on like this for so long, eventually it started to seem almost normal. Dorothy relaxed her grip on me. I relaxed my hair. She yawned. I yawned. She set me down. I didn’t pay much attention to the window after that because I spotted a pork chop on the floor. Or was it the wall? The reason I wondered was that the pork chop was lying on a picture of a grumpy looking family. I didn’t remember seeing pictures on the floor, but people did put them on the wall. Or maybe they grew that way. Anyhow, it was a small pork chop, so I finished it in a few bites and looked for a place to bury the bone. There was an opening in the floor where the cellar had been when the house sat on the ground instead of floating. If I put my bone in there, it might keep up with the rest of the house and bury itself when we landed. But what if it didn’t? I decided to bury the bone in Dorothy’s bed. I guess she thought I was scared. She followed me and climbed onto the bed and poked around under the covers until she found me. We snuggled together for another long time, listening to the wind howl and feeling the house pitch and turn with a rocking motion that grew steadier after a while. It was way past time for my early-mid-late-morning nap, so I closed my eyes. Dorothy snored, but I never fell asleep. I did rest my eyes a little, though. Suddenly, the bed fell out of the sky with a loud whump that hurt my ears. The house fell, too, of course, since the bed was still in the house. The view out the windows was different from back on the farm. I could see trees, lots of beautiful, tall trees. We don’t have many of those back home, so it’s hard to find a good stick to chew or the right target for marking territory. But now they were everywhere. I had never seen so many trees in one place. “Dorothy,” I barked, “I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” But of course, she couldn’t understand me.

The Book Faerie Reviews
This is Oz as you've never seen it before! Dorothy never would have made it back without Toto's help.

My review copy came from Zumaya Thresholds. This is juvenile fantasy, and has been released in trade paperback form. It is currently available for sale. Check with your local bookstore to get a copy.

Part of the real charm of this story is that Toto doesn't understand human language well, and what he thinks he is hearing is a pun on the real words. He thinks they are looking for a lizard (not wizard), he has nicknames for all the main characters; for instance, he calls him a metal man, not the Tin Man.

The story line stays close to the movie most people have seen more than once, but the view from Toto's eyes gives you a fresh look at an old story. He considers Dorothy his pet, and he really has to work hard to try to keep her safe.

The authors kept my attention and have made an exciting, fun story out of how the dog viewed the adventure. The punny lines make you laugh. This should be a fun read for young ones. Especially if they are fans of Oz.

Check it out at your local bookstore and get a copy. Even adults can enjoy reading this one.

YA Books Central
Everyone knows the story The Wizard of Oz. Or do they? Dorothy wasn't the only one who left Kansas that one fateful day. Toto, her faithful terrier companion, also came. Sure we know Dorothy's account of visiting Oz but what if her dog could talk? What tales would he tell?

TOTO'S TALE is a fun twist on the classic tale. What I loved about this story was Toto. He's a feisty, spirited little terrier that is faithful to his human pet Dorothy even if she doesn't understand him. Toto gets into some strange and funny encounters that include talking back to some not too nice flying monkeys who insist on calling his a 'rat', standing up to a six foot lion, and even refusing to back down from the wicked witch. I don't know about anyone else, but that witch scared me when I was a child!

Toto's antics had me chuckling in more than a few places. He also reminded me of more than a few other little doggies.

This tale is also filled with rich descriptions of Oz from a doggie's point of view. The wicked witch shoes smell like burnt dandruff and frog water. Interesting combos.

But above all this story shows a faithful, brave dog companion who helps save the day.

Book Reviews by Molly
Ya'll know the story of The Wizard of Oz,right? Well, I know I know it, and it is one of my FAVORITE movies. I love watching it when it comes on TV (thank goodness for DVRs!). The opportunity arose to review a book called Toto's Tale. At first, I said to myself that I wouldn't review it because it would be too much like a kids book, with lots of pictures and kind of goofy. Not so. Well, I mean it is goofy, but not in the way I was expecting. Goofy in a humorous sort of way. It does say that this book is juvenile fiction/fantasy but I think most anyone who LOVES The Wizard of Oz AND books will love this sweet little tale!

Toto's Tale is told in the point of view of Toto. Yep that's right. The dog. He smells the storm brewing that will lift up the house and twist them and twitch them each way and land them on the wicked witch of the east. What's funny about this little book is that from a dog's point of view, going to Oz is HILARIOUS! The laughs and smiles were certainly rolling off my face when I read this book. Dorothy is his pet girl and he must protect, but then he makes some friends along the way. Some of these friends, were not in the original Wizard Of Oz but still, he makes them and the comics really start rolling then!

Again, I say that this book is juvenile fiction/fantasy, but it's a great, sweet read for most anyone. If you have a young reader in your life, then please, grab a copy (or two or three!). This 5 star little book will be a perfect Christmas gift for them!