Munchkinland--an excerpt from Mirrors and Maps (for 11-14 year-old girls)

You've probably seen--or at least heard of--The Wizard of Oz. So you know the deal: Dorothy, a girl about your age, is trying to escape a tornado and a crazy, witchy woman who wants to take her cute little dog, Toto. She runs into her room to hide and gets hit on the head and knocked out. When she wakes up, she opens the door to walk outside and finds the world has changed. Everything on her aunt and uncle's farm had been dreary, gray, and dusty. But the world she enters is sunny and bright--almost too bright. Munchkins are coming out of enormous flowers, and a beautiful witch is floating down from the sky in a pink bubble.

As you can imagine, Dorothy is a little thrown. She turns to her dog and says, "Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore." And she's right.

These years of your life are a lot like Dorothy's waking up in Munchkinland...