WICKED

Join us for our next book in the Rubber Banned Book Club!

With millions of copies in print around the world, Gregory Maguire’s Wicked is established not only as a commentary on our time but as a novel to revisit for years to come. Wicked relishes the inspired inventions of L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, while playing sleight of hand with our collective memories of the 1939 MGM film starring Margaret Hamilton (and Judy Garland). In this fast-paced, fantastically real, and supremely entertaining novel, Maguire has populated the largely unknown world of Oz with the power of his own imagination.

Years before Dorothy and her dog crash-land, another little girl makes her presence known in Oz. This girl, Elphaba, is born with emerald-green skin—no easy burden in a land as mean and poor as Oz, where superstition and magic are not strong enough to explain or overcome the natural disasters of flood and famine. Still, Elphaba is smart, and by the time she enters Shiz University, she becomes a member of a charmed circle of Oz’s most promising young citizens.

But Elphaba’s Oz is no utopia. The Wizard’s secret police are everywhere. Animals—those creatures with voices, souls, and minds—are threatened with exile. Young Elphaba, green and wild and misunderstood, is determined to protect the Animals—even if it means combating the mysterious Wizard, even if it means risking her single chance at romance. Ever wiser in guilt and sorrow, she can find herself grateful when the world declares her a witch. And she can even make herself glad for that young girl from Kansas.

Recognized as an iconoclastic tour de force on its initial publication, the novel has inspired the blockbuster musical of the same name—one of the longest-running plays in Broadway history. Popular, indeed. But while the novel’s distant cousins hail from the traditions of magical realism, mythopoeic fantasy, and sprawling nineteenth-century sagas of moral urgency, Maguire’s Wicked is as unique as its green-skinned witch.  [Harper Collins Publishers]

WHY WAS THIS BOOK BANNED IN SOME SCHOOLS & STATES?

As of February 2026, WICKED is the 6th most banned book in the United States with 17 ongoing bans in schools. The majority of schools (Florida & Utah) claim the book contains scenes of sex, violence, and sexual violence that isn’t appropriate for their students.

ABOUT GREGORY MACGUIRE

Gregory Maguire is a writer of several dozen crossover books for adults and children. His best-known work is Wicked.

He also helped found and for 25 years co-directed Children’s Literature New England, Inc., a nonprofit that raises awareness of the significance of literature in the lives of children. [Gregorymacguire.com]

 

photo credit by Jeremy Goldstein

 

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ABOUT THE READERS

DARA CAMERON is a proud ensemble member of American Blues Theater and a member of Actors’ Equity Association. Some Blues credits include The Last Wide Open, It’s a Wonderful Life: Live in Chicago!, The Spitfire Grill, Little Shop of Horrors, and Hank Williams: Lost Highway.  A graduate of Northwestern University, she has performed extensively with American Blues and numerous regional theaters, as well as off-Broadway in Old Jews Telling Jokes, and in its Chicago engagement at the Royal George Theatre.

Select favorite roles outside of Blues include Hero (Asolo Repertory Theatre and Marriott Theatre, Jeff Award nomination), Sunset Boulevard and Fiddler on the Roof (Drury Lane), The Secret of My Success (Paramount Theatre), The Addams Family (Mercury Theater), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Theatre at the Center), and productions of October Sky, Elf, South Pacific, Sister Act, and City of Angels at the Marriott Theatre.

EDITHA ROSARIO-MOORE has been a proud Ensemble Member of American Blues Theater since 2001 and currently serves as President of the Board of Directors. Some Blues credits include The People’s Temple, Hairy Ape, Working, Catch-22, and multiple years writing for The Ripped Festival. She grew up on the West Side of Chicago in the Austin neighborhood. After studying theater at Northwestern University, she worked as an actor and teacher in Chicago, where she was also an original ensemble member of Teatro Luna, Chicago’s first all-Latina theater. She then moved to NYC for her graduate studies at New York University, where she received a Master of Arts in Playwriting and Feminist Studies. Editha also served as the executive director of NYC’s INTAR Theater, one of the oldest Latine theatre companies in the United States.

Working as a theater artist and teacher in both Chicago and NYC inspired Editha to work on issues of social justice. She moved to New Orleans to attend Tulane University Law School. Editha later returned home to work as both a public defender and a theater artist. Currently, she is a proud attorney supervisor at the Cook County Public Defender, which has inspired her to make theater that represents the working-class heart and soul of Chicago. In 2019, she won the Illinois Public Defender Association’s Bruce Robert Jacob Award, for efforts that embody the core values of the Public Defender Movement in the United States and the State of Illinois. Editha has also published legal scholarship that explores the relationship between criminal law education and community empowerment. She lives in Oak Park with her husband and daughter.