"Wicked" bewitched the whole family — but the book is not appropriate for kids
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Theaters across the country have been packed with "Wicked" fans of all ages: The film set a record for the biggest opening weekend for a Broadway adaptation with its $114 million domestic debut.
The big picture: While the world of Oz enthralled young audiences, the book on which it's based — with its vast worldbuilding, complex character development and social commentary — does not have the same target audience as the film or musical.
- "'Wicked' the movie is rated PG. 'Wicked' the novel would be rated R," Sylvie Shaffer, a children's literature specialist wrote in a column for the Washington Post.
- The book is currently #4 and #11 on Amazon's "Most Wished For" list. The book's recent re-release includes a movie tie-in version being sold with a cover image of the film's Elphaba and Glinda, played by Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande.
Catch up quick: Gregory Maguire's 1995 novel, "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West," was the inspiration for the Broadway show, which began bewitching audiences in 2003.
- Maguire vastly expanded the lore of Oz from the source material in L. Frank Baum's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" and the famous 1939 film that followed. And he didn't just write one book: Maguire has published seven novels set in the Wicked universe and will release an eighth next year.
- He recalled in a recent interview with Them how his retelling was influenced by the crises of the 1990s: The AIDS epidemic, real-world violence, foreign conflicts and more.
- And with that context as the backdrop, the book tackles dark themes. The story is at times sexual and violent and features drinking, drugs and crime.
What he's saying: Maguire said in an interview with MassLive that the books are not for children — a warning he tried to convey within the opening scenes of the first novel.
- If parents or guardians picking up the book with their kids in mind read "to page 14," he said, they'd "see puppets having sex on a stage."
- "I purposefully put some somewhat raunchy material in the first few pages of 'Wicked' the novel to show what people were getting into," he said, "that they were going to have to leave behind their ideas about an all-singing, all-dancing chorus line of flying monkeys."
Zoom out: But that's not to say parents shouldn't pull inspiration from their children's love of the magical "Wicked" world when picking literary stocking stuffers this year.
- Shaffer provided a sampling of stories "Wicked"-loving tweens and young teens should explore — the first of which, "Cress Watercress," was penned by Maguire himself for a younger audience.
Go deeper: "Wicked" fans asked to follow theater etiquette and not sing
