Happy birthday, lyricist Yip Harburg

It is the birthday of lyricist Yip Harburg (1896), who wrote the words to Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?, April in Paris, It's Only a Paper Moon, and all the songs in The Wizard of Oz. He became a songwriter at the urging of his boyhood friend Ira Gershwin after the market crash of 1929 ruined an electrical appliance company Harburg co-owned. Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? became an anthem for the down and out during the Depression.

Rare Book Moment: Illustrating the classics

Here's edition No. 12 of Rare Book Moment. Mike discusses the various illustration styles in classics like Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz. Also, watch for the new segment For What It's Worth, a discussion of the values of books mentioned in the program.

L. Frank Baum wrote The Wizard of Oz

L. Frank Baum

It is the birthday of author L. Frank Baum (1856), whose delightful children's story, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), has enchanted youngsters and adults for generations. Baum's book was immediately successful, and over the years he wrote 13 sequels. Though he often vowed he had written is last Oz book as he turned to other fantasies, he returned to the wonderful land of Oz. Baum was a sickly child and turned early to writing stories and plays, and to publishing. He produced a local newspaper as a child and magazines devoted to stamp collecting and raising poultry. Baum and his wife Maud moved to the Dakota Territory in 1888, where he operated a store that went bankrupt. He edited the local paper, The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer. He moved to Chicago in 1891, worked as a reporter and wrote a collection of Mother Goose stories written in prose. That was followed by Father Goose, His Book (1899). He moved to California in started a movie production company that failed in a year. Baum wrote numerous children's fantasy books, short stories and plays. He also wrote novels under pseudonyms, including Edith VanDyne (Aunt Jane series), Floyd Akers (Boy Fortune Hunter series), Schuyler Staunton, John Estes Cooke, Suzanne Metcalf  and Laura Bancroft.