There were honorable exceptions. He loved a book about a monkey, called Curious George. George kept getting into trouble, breaking things. Jonathan also loved a book called Space Cat. It was rather long-winded, and Jonathan would torment himself by forcing his way through the languorous opening. It was about a cat and a space pilot who became friends. They went to the moon and Space Cat had his own spacesuit, with a sausage-shaped piece for his tail. On the moon, there were floating silver globes, full of light, that were alive.

And, Jonathan loved The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

He did not have the real book. His parents did not know that he could read. They read aloud to him and thought he just looked at the pictures. They had bought him a slim, picture-book version. There was a pretty, blond Dorothy and a smiling Scarecrow. The Wizard was shown as several different things, a beautiful woman and a monster. There was only one page that showed a witch, but she soon melted away like all bad dreams.

Jonathan loved a few books and hated the rest. He hated mechanical toys and model cars. Most of all, he loathed television.

In the first place, it was full of murder. Dale Evans would be tied to a chair-horrible violation-and even though he knew Roy Rogers would arrive in time, riding Trigger, it was still terrible. Why, he thought, why watch anything that you hated, telling yourself that it would be all right in the end because it was a TV show? If the only comfort was knowing it was not real, why watch it at all?

He also hated the thing itself. His parents' television stood on four spindly legs. It was as if it could walk, with its one huge unblinking eye. Jonathan had dim memories of seeing a film on that one blind eye, a film in which an alien disguised himself as a television set. Jonathan could imagine, so clearly, the television suddenly lurching toward him, shooting electricity in lightning bolts from its blank screen.

If his parents turned it on and there was a Western or a cartoon, things he was supposed to like, he would scream and run away or howl until it was turned off. His parents, still grateful that he had recently ceased to smear lipstick over everything, would leap forward to turn it off.

But worst of all, everything on television was in black-and-white.

Jonathan loved color. He loved red. He wanted everything in the world to be full of color. So what, the adult Jonathan would often wonder, what had made him change?

In November 1956, Jonathan saw the first broadcast of the film version of The Wizard of Oz. The movie started at 9:00 p.m. and would go on until eleven. Jonathan had never before been allowed to stay up so late. He wore his red-striped pajamas and his red bathrobe. He was covered by his Indian blanket and he leaned against his mother on the gray and itchy sofa. His father passed him a cup of hot chocolate in the brown highwayman mug. Jonathan felt very adult.

His parents were obviously excited themselves. Television was still new. The idea of seeing such a great film for free seemed a wonderful advance. Jonathan understood that the film was something delightful that had happened to his parents when they were young. They talked about it at great length as the commercials unwound. They were a mine of misinformation about it.

They told him that the story was a very old fairy tale that someone had updated and made modern. They told him that the little girl who played Dorothy had only been twelve when she played the part (though that seemed very old to Jonathan).

Then the CBS eye, black and floating against clouds, came up, and a man said in a voice of portent, "CBS presents a Ford Star Jubilee." There were advertisements for cars. Then the talking continued. "…a masterpiece of literature," said the announcer, "which has fascinated children and adults for years, ranks with the great works of all times." An old man talked to a little girl about how her mother had starred in the movie. It went on and on. What TV Guide had not said was that the film itself was only 101 minutes long-but the slot was two hours. Even Jonathan's parents began to shift uneasily.

Jonathan was in a kind of panic. He knew that he would fall asleep soon. Why couldn't they have all the talking after the movie?

A picture of a record sleeve came up. It showed a girl, and-there they were!-the Scarecrow and the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion! Jonathan squealed and kicked his legs under the blanket.

His parents beamed with pleasure. It was rare to get a reaction from Jonathan that was easily understood. The voice was asking people to write away for a special record album of songs from the film.

"I know a little boy who would like that," his mother said, smiling. And Jonathan went quiet with longing. He didn't dare say yes. Years later, he still regretted that they had never got the record.

Then suddenly it began. There were more clouds, like the CBS eye, and a chorus of voices rising up like a great wind.

Dorothy came running over a hill. She wasn't like Dorothy in his pretty little book. She was large and had dark hair, but as soon as she started to speak, there was something in her voice that soothed Jonathan as he worried. He was worried that it was so different from his book.

Her Aunty Em said a lot more things, and the farm was full of people. There was going to be more story. This was a delight to him, but he also felt betrayed. How could so many things have been left out of his book?

Jonathan remembered liking Dorothy swinging back and forth holding on to a huge barnyard wheel. It seemed like something fun to do. He was excited by her visit with Professor Marvel, who was brand-new and nothing to do with the story he knew at all. Then he grew suspicious. What if the movie was completely different and Dorothy didn't go to Oz at all?

He did not perceive Miss Gulch at all, nor was he badly affected by the threatened death of Toto. Jonathan had never had a pet to love. He had not learned to care for little animals. In fact, to him the eyes of animals seemed cold and alien. They chilled, rather than warmed him. Perhaps also he didn't understand the line about taking the dog to the Sheriff to have him destroyed.

The major disappointment was the cyclone. Jonathan was looking forward to seeing the cyclone almost as much as Oz itself. A few months before, there had been a cyclone warning, a great rarity for Ontario, and everyone had gone out and picked up loose branches and closed the shutters over windows. Jonathan had had to be dragged sullenly back inside the house. He had wanted to stay outside to see it.

But now the cyclone was lost for him amid the black-and-white blur of the television screen.

"There it is," his father said, pointing.

"Where?" demanded Jonathan, becoming angry. He had imagined cyclones as great, solid, spinning things that came from nowhere out of a blue sky. He peered narrow-eyed at the television, seeing only swirling clouds. "I can't see it!" he wailed. He saw Dorothy running, and behind her, beyond the porch of the house, he could just barely make out something moving in the sky. Was that the cyclone?