The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus: Baum tackles the big red guy

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus is just what it says on the tin, an origin story for Santa Claus. After the Wizard of Oz, it might be the most influential book that L. Frank Baum wrote.

I don't think that someone could write a book like the Life and Adventures of Santa Claus today. Baum wrote it in a fairy tale, folk story manner, very much honoring the idea that he was writing about children's beliefs. I think it would be hard for someone to approach the same material today without deconstructing it. And the mythology of Santa Claus is now so codified that it is practically set in stone. Baum wrote about Santa Claus before so much was defined, even though the book helped create some of those ideas, like Santa having magical assistants.

Only a few decades later, Seabury Quinn wrote Roads, an origin of Santa Claus as well as a deconstruction of Santa Claus with Santa as a Viking who served under both King Herod and Ponticus Pilate. It's an audacious book on the sheer idea alone but no one is going to accuse to of trying to create a Santa Claus that's true to the folklore.  

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus starts with being found as orphan baby by Fairies, who bring him up. After he grows up and goes out into the world, Claus learns of the suffering and sorrows of the world. Since children are the most innocent, he decides to help them by creating toys. Both as a concept and a physical object. As the scope of his toy work grows, the varies benevolent magical races help out. When Santa Claus grows old and dying, the magical races decide to grant him immortality through the power of a one-use magical item, so he can help out children for all time.

Oh, and basically behind Santa Claus's back, there is a major war between the nice enchanted races and the nasty ones who want to end his toy making, children helping ways.

I've actually read this book a number of times over the years. It's a pretty good read. While you know from the start how it's going to end (well, maybe the not immorality bit but Santa becoming Santa), it has some odd twists like that war.

And, as much as Baum's work has any kind of coherent cosmology, The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus defines it. It describes the benevolent races of fairies and ryls and knooks, as well as mentioning the original version of the land of Mo and the nomes. Baum never let continuity get in the way of a good story but this book gives us the clearest framework of his fantasy world.

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus is a good book for understanding the work of Baum but it's also a very good children's book.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/520

The Master Key, L. Frank Baum's science fiction

The Master Key is the closest thing the L. Frank Baum ever came to writing science fiction. While the devices in the book are as magical as anything you would find in Oz, they are at least presented as possible inventions using the power of electricity.

It was also the first non-Oz book that I ever came across by Baum. It wasn't exactly a surprise that he had written other things but it was important for me to find that out. For what it's worth, that also means that I first read the Master Key more than 20 years before I read a lot of his other books. 

Here goes a quick summary with plenty of spoilers: 

A boy named Rob, who is absolutely crazy about electricity and electronics, accidentally makes the right combination of wires and connections to touch the Master Key of Electricity and summons the Demon of Electricity, although the genii of electricity is probably a better description.

The demon, who is one arrogant being and totally dismissive of humanity, decides to give Rob three devices a week for three weeks in order to spread the wonder a knowledge of electricity.

In the first week, Rob is given a bracelet that lets him fly at transatlantic speeds, a wireless taser and pills that replace food. He goes off on some fairly reckless adventures, getting lost and barely making it home. 

On the second week, Rob gets a garment that is basically a force field, a screen that will show events around the world and a pair of glasses that will reveal someone's character. He shows more foresight than he did last time, although he still ends up globetrotting and even helping out some foreign governments.

Come the third week, Rob has had enough. He's come to the conclusion that all these devices are alienating him from his family and that people really are ready for this kind of stuff yet. He rejects the future gifts of the demon and gives the other gifts back. The book ends with a depressed demon hoping to someday humanity will be ready for him and Rob happy to be done with the whole mess.

The Master Key has probably aged more poorly than a lot of Baum's books. While I will agree that things like computers and TV sure seem like magic, the inventions are just too fantastical. In particular, the glasses that basically amount to limited telepathy is straight up magic.

On the other hand, Rob does show more character development than most of Baum's heroes. He goes from a reckless idiot to a mature young man. The book is more about his growth as a person than his adventures with the demon's devices. He's still pretty flat as a character but he does mature.

The Master Key is a cross between an Edison fantasy and a tale from the Arabian Nights, making it unique if noting else. 

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/436

American Fairy Tales - not bad but not brilliant

A collection of unrelated stories, American Fairy Tales is a bit of an oddball book in L. Frank Baum's fantasies.

First off, the fact that it is a collection of stories that have nothing to do with each other makes it unusual. The Magical Monarch of Mo, while technically a bunch of short stories, is more of an episodic novel while Little Wizard Stories of Oz are all Oz stories.

Second of all, the scope of each story is much smaller. Baum doesn't create any fantastic lands or vast adventures. The stories are more like quirky little incidences. With the Wizard of Oz, Baum said 'Look at this amazing world!' With American Fairy Tales, it's more of 'Hey, look what I found in the cupboard.'

Third, the tone is more snide and sarcastic, as opposed to whimsical and wondrous. Some of the morals are downright subversive. American Fairy Tales borders on being deconstructions of children's stories. 

When I learned that the stories were originally serialized in newspapers, things fell into place. Of course, the stories would be more stand alone and more aimed at an older audience under those circumstances. 

And compared to the other newspaper serial I read by Baum, the Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz, American Fairy Tales is a lot more enjoyable and better written. I found the Queer Visitors a dreadful read but I enjoyed American Fairy Tales all right.

The truth is, American Fairy Tales is one of Baum's weaker pieces. Which doesn't mean that it's bad. The man wrote some really good children's books. 

However, it is actually pretty low on the list of his books that I'm planning on reading to my son. It's just a little too sarcastic, not enough whimsy. It really seems to be more suited for an adult audience that wants to laugh at the structure of children stories.

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Deconstructing fairytales can be great. However, Baum is not the guy who I reach for when I am looking for that.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4357

Dot and Tot of Merryland - too sweet for words

Dot and Tot of Merryland is easily my least favorite fantasy novel by L. Frank Baum. Let me get that out of the way at the start. I don't dislike it as much as The Queer Visitors From Oz and the Woggle-Bug Book, which were written to drum up interest in the second Oz musical. With the extreme racial stereotypes, those works were downright offensive. Dot and a Tot of Merryland was just cloyingly twee

Webster tell us that twee means affectedly or excessively dainty, delicate, cute, or quaint. That pretty much sums up this novel perfectly.

Let me summarize the book for you. Spoilers ahead. In a nutshell, two small children float through seven fantastic valleys and then float home.

Dot, who is a wealthy girl of privilege although never actually described as such, is taken to the countryside for her health. There she meets and befriends the gardener's son, Tot, who is the youngest protagonist in all of Baum's books.

One day, they wander onto a boat and float down the river. After passing through a stone arch over the river, Dot and Tot find themselves in Merryland, which consists of seven valleys, each one with its own special inhabitants.

Ready for this? They are the valley of clowns, the valley of candy people, the valley of babies and storks, the valley of living dolls, the valley of pussycats, the valley of windup animals and the valley of lost things.

Honestly, for almost all intents and purposes, this is a tour guide of Merryland. Everyone is nice to Dot and Tot, they're never in any danger and there's virtually no conflict. In fact, the queen of Merryland, who is a living wax doll in the middle valley, makes them a princess and prince of Merryland.

There are some low notes in the book. The chocolate people in the valley of candy are straight out of a minstrel show. There are some high notes, like the genuinely neat Mr. Split who can divide himself in half to wind the clock work animals twice as fast and each half only speaks in half words. But, on a whole, the novel just strolls along in extreme sweetness.

I have asked myself how I could like the earlier Magical Monarch of Mo so much more than Dot and Tot of Merryland. It's also super light and silly beyond words. However, silly is not the same as twee and every chapter in the Magical Monarch of Mo is full of conflict. Nothing really happens in Dot and Tot.

All the same, I might try reading it to my son in a year or so. Maybe a child the age of Tot might get more out of the book than me.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37976

The Magical Monarch of Mo, the start of Baum's fantasies

The Magical Monarch of Mo, originally published as A New Wonderland, was L. Frank Baum's first fantasy book, published right before the Wizard of Oz. 

And it has more whimsy and nonsense than any of the Oz books. Living jigsaw puzzles or people who carry their brains around in cans pale before how silly Mo is. Everything, from clothes to baked goods, grows from trees in Mo so no one has to work. No one ever dies in Mo. Getting chopped up or flattened is just an inconvenience.

Unlike most of Baum's fantasies, the Magical Monarch of Mo is a collection of short stories, connected by either about the monarch himself or one of his innumerable relatives. There is also a loose arc about the purple dragon, the greatest foe of the Monarch because the dragon is a candy hog. Oh, and likes to bite off people heads.

I found the Magical Monarch of Mo to be surprisingly fun. Not only is it lighter than almost anything else he wrote, it embraces the silliness without restraint, like how the monarch escapes from a  pit by turning it upside down so he's on top. Not having an outsider like Dorothy actually helps because it lets the natives of Moe just romp about.

Many of the ideas in the book reappear in later books, like the idea of food growing on trees or no one ever dying in Oz. However, they get  scaled back from the craziness that you find in Mo.

While the Monarch does not reappear in later books, moon is referred to in both the Oz books and the Life and Times of Santa Claus (Santa gets his candy from Mo).

The Magical Monarch of Mo is not one of Baum's greatest books. It definitely lacks dramatic tension when someone can get their head bitten off and be just fine. It also lacks a strong central protagonist like Dorothy for the readers to relate to and cheer on. However, it is still silly fun and if a child can handle someone getting squished flat and pumped back up, they will enjoy it.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16259

The Emerald City of Oz, where Baum planned on ending the series

Ho boy. This is a big one. The Emerald City of Oz is the book that turns so much of Oz on its head. The Nome King returns, more vindictive than ever. Vast evil armies march upon Oz. Oh, and Dorothy moves to Oz permanently, along with Uncle Henry and Aunt Em.

Okay, it's that last one that really shakes things up and breaks the formula we've become used to. You know, Dorothy somehow ends up in the fairy lands, has adventures and goes home to her loving family that don’t quite know what to make of her stories.

Like pretty much everyone alive today, my first exposure to Oz was the 1939 movie with Judy Garland. That version of the Wizard of Oz ends with it all being a dream. Having Uncle Henry and Auntie Em end up living in the emerald city is a huge difference than it all being just a dream.

As is often the case with Baum, real life does have an explanation for this big shift. Baum was wrapping up the series and intended for the Emerald City of Oz to be the last book, which also explains the whole evil armies invading Oz too.

Of course, the fact that he would go on to write eight more Oz books, plus a small short story collection about Oz shows how wrong he was. Unfortunately for Baum but fortunately for those of us who enjoyed his Oz books, nothing else sold nearly as well and he had to go back to Oz in the name of money.

(I do think that Sky Island, which was the last book he wrote before he threw in the towel and went back to Oz is a really good book, by the way)

Anyway, let the spoilers begin as I give a quick summery of the book.

Most of The Emerald City of Oz goes back and forth between two plotlines that dovetail together at the end of the book. On the one hand, we have the villains’ storyline. The Nome King is back, planning his revenge on Oz by leading several armies of evil creatures to conquer Oz. On the other hand, we have Dorothy and her family immigrating to Oz and spending some time as tourists before they learn about the impending invasion.

At the beginning of the book, Uncle Henry’s about to lose the farm. It turns out that he never was able to financially get over the farmhouse getting destroyed in the first book.

After she learns this, Dorothy arranges with Ozma for the whole family to move to Oz. (So that happens right at the start of the book so I didn’t spoil much mentioning it in the first paragraph)

After they arrive, in order to help them settle in and get used to what Oz is like, Dorothy and the Wizard take Uncle Henry and Aunt Em on a road trip where they get a chance to see some of the crazy tiny little kingdoms in Oz.

While Baum is no stranger to oddball places, he really pulls out the stops with this trip. Living jigsaw puzzles, talking utensils and philosophy arguments between crabs and zebras.

The trip does include what I found to be one of Dorothy’s most unsympathetic moments. After Toto eats some of the inhabitants of Bunbury, who are living bread, Dorothy takes offense to them having a problem with that since they are food, after all.

The other plotline, which I found more interesting, describes how the Nome King appoints a new general, Guph. Guph then goes out and recruits increasingly nasty allies. The Whimsies are giants with tiny heads that they cover with papier-mâché masks, the Growleywogs are even stronger giants with a total absence of body fat and finally the Phanfasms who have vast magical powers.

Of course, every last one of them, including the Nomes, plan on betraying everyone else. While they don’t get a chance to, my money would be on the Phanfasms. The other three groups have their silly elements but the Phanfasms are just plain creepy.

Thanks to Ozma’s magical picture, Ozma and company learn about how the Nomes are tunneling to Oz so the armies can invade. They trick the armies into drinking from the Fountain of Oblivion, causing them to lose all their memories and give up this whole evil invasion nonsense.

Glinda the Good then casts a spell that renders Oz invisible to the outside world. Since Dorothy was allegedly the one telling Baum everything that happened, his source has dried up, hence wrapping up the series.

Baum might not have ended up ending the Oz books with the Emerald City of Oz but he certainly does a good job making it a worthy end to the series. While the General Jinjur got farther in her civil war in the Land of Oz as far as conquering Oz is concerned, the Nome King and his allies are a far more serious threat. They are easily the greatest danger that the land faces in all of Baum’s books.

Heck, even the degree of silly stops on Dorothy and company’s grand tour of Oz exceeds anything else in the series for sheer density of locations. Baum clearly planned on ending in a big way and I’d say he succeeded.

Of course, it wasn’t the end. Not by a long shot. But, boy, were things shaken up.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/517

The Road to Oz, a road movie before they existed

Okay, moving on to the fifth Oz book.

While it is far from the worst book in the Oz canon, the Road to Oz might have the most banal plot out of all of them. Dorothy, Toto and assorted companions end up on a magic road so they can go to Ozma's birthday party, with Ozma keeping an eye on them the whole time.

Don't be me wrong. The book is a fun read. It introduces several important characters to the series. And, for me personally, inspired me to read other books by Baum. But every other book has some kind of crisis going on while the Road to Oz is just an invitation to a party.

Let me spoil the plot for you.

After meeting the Shaggy Man, who is basically a slightly insane homeless man with a magical artifact, Dorothy and Toto find themselves somehow warped from Kansas to a road that passes through various magical kingdoms. Quite a change from a cyclone!

I have to say, reading this book as an adult and as a parent, the Shaggy Man actually starts off pretty creepy. He shoved Toto in his pocket when the dog growls at him before he meets Dorothy. Then, he insists Dorothy go off alone with him to show him which way to go. Seriously, if this wasn't a happy, innocent Oz book, we'd be talking hardcore stranger danger material. Fortunately, it is an Oz book and the Shaggy Man turns out it to be a capital fellow.

They basically just run into Button Bright, a simple boy from Philadelphia, and Polychrome, the rainbow's daughter, who round out the group. To be fair, Dorothy usually does just randomly run into people who will become staunch friends.

They pass through a town of talking foxes and then one of talking donkeys. Unlike Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, where Dorothy can't find a place where people aren't trying to kill her, the talking animals are all friendly. Button Bright does get cursed with a fox's head and the Shaggy Man with a donkey's head but the animals thought they were doing them a favor!

After a brief encounter with the Musicker, who is an annoying living accordion, Dorothy and her friends the Scoodlers, the one dangerous thing in the entire book. They can take their heads off to throw them at people and they intend to eat the party. The Shaggy Man ultimately thwarts them by catching their heads baseball style and throwing them down a gulley.

At last, Dorothy and her friends reach the deadly desert that surrounds Oz, whose sand will kill you with a touch. So the Shaggy Man summons up his friend, Johnny Doit, who has to be the godfather of steam punk, who builds them a sand boat to cross the desert and get to Oz.

Once there, a magical pool restores the heads of Button Bright and the Shaggy Man. Then, they go to Ozma's fabulous birthday party, which includes guests from several of Baum's other books. At the end, everyone gets to go safely home, except for the Shaggy Man who stays in Oz.

 

The Shaggy Man is an interesting character to me in many ways. In addition to the whole stranger danger bit in the first chapter, he's a homeless American with a magical artifact, the love magnet, who can summon up a powerful buddy in the form of Johnny Doit. For a guy whose schtick is ragged clothing, he's pretty powerful.

The Shaggy Man was apparently one of Baum's favorite characters and he does show up a lot in later books. He's never quite as powerful but he never loses his optimistic outlook.

Both Button Bright and Polychrome also show up in a lot of later books. In fact, they are at their most helpless in the Road to Oz. They are both allowed to grow up a bit and have character development. In fact, I'd say the Road to Oz doesn't even hint to how cool they get to become.

The next time they show up, it's in a non-Oz book, Sky Island. Which is one of my favorite Baum books. In it, Button Bright is a much more capable adventurer and Polychrome is practically a walking deux ex machina. Fun times.

In addition, there are appearances from a bunch of Baum's non-Oz books at Ozma's birthday party. Characters from Dot and Trot of Merryland, the Life and Times of Santa Claus, John Dough and the Cherub, and Queen Zixi of Ix all show up.

This is significant for me personally since I decided that I needed to actually read all those books, plus the rest of Baum's fantasy books. 

The Road to Oz isn't the most dramatic or significant book but it does seem like Baum had fun writing it and I did have fun reading it.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/485

Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz - dangerous underground adventures

Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz is the fourth book in the Oz canon and, in case you didn't guess, brings the wizard back to Oz. Bringing the wizard back into the fold really gets the whole gang back together.

OK, spoilers time as I give a quick summary of the plot.

Dorothy, on her way back from Australia, is visiting some relatives in California. And earthquake opens up the world beneath her feet. Okay, under the buggy she is riding in. Dorothy, her cousin Zeb, the horse Jim and Dorothy's kitten Eureka all end up falling into the magical kingdoms under the Earth. 

Shortly thereafter, the wizard shows up in a balloon that had ALSO fallen through a crack in the Earth from ANOTHER Earthquake. Seriously, coincidence in the eyes books is more reliable than gravity. Lightning doesn't just strike twice, you could set your a clock by it.

At this point, our heroic little band ends up visiting a series of magical kingdom's, practically turning into a road trip movie. However, unlike some of the later books, there is some thematic progression in their travels, with each one more dangerous than the last.

They start off in a glass city of the heartless vegetable people. They passed through a beautiful valley filled with ferocious, invisible bears. 

After a breather scene where they meet the silly Braided Man, our heroes end up in the silent, wooden kingdom of the gargoyles. The gargoyles might actually be one of Baum's most disturbing creations, not the least because they completely silent and relentless.

The gargoyles are followed up by a nest of baby dragons who really, really want to eat our heroes.However, they do have some amusing dialogue so they're not nearly as creepy as the gargoyles.

Once our heroes get past baby dragons, they come to the end of their line and are well and truly trapped. Fortunately, Ozma regularly checks on Dorothy magically and uses the power of the Nome King's magic belt to transport the mole safely to us. As I mentioned in Ozma of Oz, that belt is the ultimate deuce ex mechana of the books.

After that, everyone has some fun times in Oz. It is worth noting that Jim and Zeb and Eureka actually all decide they don't want to stay in Oz. The wizard, of course, does decide to stay. And Dorothy goes back home as well.

After the first three books in the series have such different tones, the fact that Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz is written in the same tone as Ozma of Oz actually makes it harder for me to say anything that is trying to be deep about the series.

As I already mentioned, the book is really serious with episodes, with the heroes passing through different magical kingdoms. This is something that happens a lot in the Oz books.

However, Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz actually has a bit more of a framework to its road movie feel. For one thing, unlike most of the books, virtually every place that they visit wants to kill them. With the exception of their visit to the Braided an, every place is actively out to get them. And, as they go farther and farther under the Earth, each place becomes progressively more dangerous.

I am also going to go out on a limb and say that this book has some of the most violent scenes in the entire series. The first book in the series is also pretty violent but I found the violence in this book more striking. And the wizard is central to almost all of the violence.

His duel with the vegetable wizard, which begins with parlor tricks, rapidly degenerates to the two of them trying to kill each other. The wizard comes out ahead by pulling out a sword and. Cutting. Him. In. Half. Really, that is some rough stuff.

The wizard also kills one of the invisible bears with his sword and, when they get to the land of the gargoyles, pulls out a pair of revolvers from his magical trick bag to fight off the gargoyles.

Seriously, for his magic tricks at the fair, the wizard is carrying around a fully functional sword and two loaded pistols. What, in the name of organized crime, kind of carnival was he working at?

The development of the wizard throughout the early books is a fairly interesting one. Of course, in the original wonderful Wizard of Oz, he is a harmless and lovable trickster. However, in the stage play, he is the big bad guy and that gets reflected in the Land of Oz, where he had a hand in kidnapping and transforming of Ozma. 

But all of the children who just read the books really liked the lovable old humbug and wanted him back. So with this book, we completely forget about him aiding and abetting in the kidnapping of a small child. Although, if that bugs you too much, Mombi could have been lying about how complicit he was with the kidnapping.

From here on out, the wizard is going to be a regular character in the books and he is going to be practically a surrogate father figure for all the small children who end up living in Oz.

Unusually enough, almost none of the new characters who get introduced this book really go on play a major role or even just hanging out in the background of Ozma's court. Jim and Zeb are never mentioned ever again. And, while Eureka the kitten does eventually make it back to Oz, she never returns to any degree of prominence. The glass cat who is introduced a few books later is the definitive cat character in Baum's Oz.

And, quite frankly, the pet piglets of the wizard makes such a small impression that I haven't even bothered to mention them up until this point.

While I liked Ozma of Oz better, Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz is still a strong part of the canon. The characters are constantly in dire danger and that keeps the story driving forward.

It is a book that I would recommend reading yourself before you would read it to a small child because some of the scenes of violence are pretty shocking compared to what leads up to them. While they aren't graphics  or glory, I still think they are startling. And you wouldn't have to change the gargoyles at all to make them at home in a horror movie.

Still, if you have decided to read the first three books, you won't be disappointed with the fourth.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/420

Ozma of Oz - my favorite Oz book

Ozma of Oz is the third book in the Oz cannon. It also happens to my favorite book in the series. I've easily read it more often than I've read even the Wizard of Oz. It is the most tightly plotted book in the series and I think it is really where Baum found his voice for the series.

The Land of Oz was heavily influenced by the success of the stage version of the Wizard of Oz. Among other things, the stage play downplayed the role of Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion so neither of them showed up in the second book. The Land of Oz also had a lot of slapstick, which doesn't jibe well with the fairytale atmosphere of Oz.

In other words, I think that Baum forgot his real audience, children. Apparently, quite a few children wrote to him, asking whatever happened to Dorothy and the lion. More importantly, the second stage play was a serious flop.

While the Oz books have a huge and imaginative cast, Dorothy is the most important part of the picture. She is our eyes and ears into the fantastic world. And she also teaches the valuable lesson that a regular little girl  can make a big difference, even when she has companions who are so magical.

The book begins with Dorothy as a castaway along with a yellow hen named Billina after they get washed off of the ship going to Australia. (In some ways, a farm girl from Kansas going to Australia for a vacation may be one of the most strange elements of the book.)

Dorothy puts together that she is in a fairy land after Billina gains the power to talk. They have an encounter with creatures called the wheelers, who have wheels instead of hands and feet, and discover the clockwork man Tik-Tok, who becomes their staunch ally.

After Dorothy becomes the captive of Princess Langwidere, who has the disturbing trait of interchangeable heads, Ozma and her entourage arrive, using a magical carpet to cross the deadly desert that surrounds Oz. Amusingly enough, it is not a flying carpet but a red carpet that rolls and unrolls so you can always walk on it.

After they free Dorothy, Ozma and company explained that they are there to save the royal family of Ev, who are the captives of the Nome King.

And here is where the story really goes into high gear. The Nome King transformed his captives into tchotchke and intends to do the same for the Oz crew. Fortunately, Billina overhears him gloating and learns the how he color coded the tchotchkes so she knows how to free everyone.  

Of course the Nome King is an evil bastard and refuses to release everyone but Dorothy gains his magic belt. That belt is the most powerful dingus in all the books. Seriously, you do not mess with Dorothy. Cue the triumphant escape.

Everyone is able to happily go home and Ozma also now has the magical belt so she can freely transport Dorothy to and from Oz.

As I said before, this is one of the most tightly plotted books in the Oz canon. Most of the books have at least some element of being a road movie, where our heroes pass through some kind of strange village or land that has nothing to do with the overall plot. In Ozma of Oz, virtually every scene drives the plot forward.

The tone of the book also shifts solidly into what I'm going to call Baum's American Fairy Tale voice. Baum manages to convey ridiculously imaginative settings and characters in a very grounded voice. Baum has his children react realistically to their situations or at least the way that children would like to think they would react. (I'm pretty sure I'd have run screaming from a waking, talking scarecrow when I was a kid... or right now, really)

Ozma of Oz introduced several characters who continue to be important in the series. Perhaps the most important to Tik-Tok, who may be one of the earliest robots and clockwork men in modern fiction. He is unique in all of the strange crowd of Oz by distinctly NOT being alive. Despite that, he goes on to be a very steady part of the Oz posse.

Another very important character who gets added is the Nome King, known as both Roquat and Roggedo. While the Wicked Witch of the West is THE Oz villain, thanks to Margaret Hamilton's brilliant portrayal in the 1939 movie, the Nome King is the big bad of the books. He goes on to be a thorn in Oz's side in three more books and even gets an appearance in one of Baum's rare short stories.l

It has to be admitted that picking fights with the kingdom of Oz is a bad idea. Ozma of Oz sees the Nome King at the height of his power. As the books go, he just falls farther and farther from grace but he remains a determined villain.

While not actually a character per se, the Nome King's magic belt. While most of the magic in Baum's books is very specific in what in can do, the magic belt can do whatever the plot needs it to. Most importantly, it gave an automatic way for to Dorothy to come and go from Oz. 

While Ozma of Oz is Billina the Yellow Chicken's only major role, she also makes regular appearances throughout the series and has the virtue of speaking common sense more often than a lot of folks.

The book also introduces what I have to say feels like the most underused character in the Oz posse, the Hungry Tiger. Best friend of the Cowardly Lion and staunch protector of Ozma, the Hungry Tiger craves fat babies to eat but his conscious will never let him. Honestly, it feels like his character development took place in a missing book because he feels like he should have a backstory like the lion or the Tin Woodman or the Scarecrow.

Ozma of Oz is a very good book. It brings back Dorothy to her place as eyes and ears of Oz and builds a foundation of tone and situations and characters that served Baum for many books to come.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/486

Two of the odder bits of Baum's Oz

Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz and the Woggle-Bug book were two of the strangest things that I discovered when I started exploring the fantastic literature of L. Frank Baum.

Queer Visitors started out as a newspaper comic strip to promote the novel the Land of Oz. I read a novelized version of about half of them. The Woggle-Bug Book is an adaptation of the Woggle Bug's subplot in the play of the same name, which was an adaptation of the Land of Oz.

Look, before I go into any more detail, let me state at the outset that this was easily the worst stuff I read by Baum. While it was almost the shortest thing I read, it took me the longest because it was such a slog.  

In between the publication of the Wizard of Oz and the Land of Oz, there was a very successful stageplay. It is widely accepted that that influenced the Land of Oz, with some critics stating that elements of the book were clearly written with stage work in mind. Personally, I didn't notice that when I was first exposed to the book but that was my mom reading it to me when I was five. Rereading it as an adult, yeah, I can see that.

But the play was aimed at an older audience with more vaudeville influence. By the time it was done getting adapted, it wasn't nearly as much at children. It had topical humor and Vaudeville routines and chorus lines. That is reflected in both Queer Visitors and the Woggle-Bug Book.

Queer Visitors is a series of vignettes about how the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, Jack Pumpkinhead, the Woggle-Bug and the Sawhorse fly to the US on the Gump and have wacky adventures as tourists. For some reason, many of them have a punch line of the Woggle-Bug successfully naming places in the US. That was actually part of a contest running in the newspapers but it makes for really bad reading.

Listen, no one will ever accuse Baum of having a great grasp on continuity. Is Ozma the daughter of the last king of Oz or an immortal fairy empowered by the queen of the fairies to rule over Oz long ago? Depends on which book you read. But Queer Visitors breaks way too many of the rules, has the characters act in ways they never have and never again will and is rubbish besides.

But it is better than the Woggle-Bug book. 

That describes more of the Woggle-Bug's adventures in the US. In it, he falls in love with a dress, chasing after everyone who owns it. And the owners are a veritable showcase of racial and ethnic stereotypes. After a brief visit to a land of taking animals, the Woggle-Bug ends up getting a tie made out of the dress and happy.

It's crude and racists but, above all else, it doesn't resemble anything that makes you think Oz.

As a children's author, Baum had a gift. He wrote charming and whimsical stories that ranged from silly fun to the outright fantastic. Even his weakest children's book (which I'm going to argue was Dot and Tot of Merryland) has its fun bits.

Neither Queer Visitors nor The Woggle-Bug book were written for kids, not really. Every reason Baum is still remembered isn't there. It's like he wrote a farce of his own work and it's just bad stuff.

The Land of Oz, when we knew it was a series

The Marvelous Land of Oz is a watershed book in a lot of ways. To the best of my knowledge, Baum hadn't planned on making a series when he wrote the Wizard of Oz. With the Land of Oz, he was at least showing some interest in creating an ongoing series, although I personally don't think the idea is solidified until the third book. I'm sure there are scholars who will prove me wrong.

OK, I'm going to give an overview of the plot of the book. Which means, spoilers galore. The book is free and you can download it from Project Gutenberg so you can do that right now and read it if you want, before I go and spoil it all.

Now that I've dutifully warn you, let me talk about the plot.

The Land of Oz is the only book in the series that doesn't have any characters from the outside world in it. As a side note, that pretty much always means someone from the United States.

In the beginning, our hero, a boy named Tip, is pretty much the slave of the witch called Mombi. It's a pretty low level of slavery, more like an abusive or really strict foster parent. However, when Mombi brings a pumpkin headed manikin to life, she plans on turning Tip into a marble statue since she doesn't need him anymore.

In the beginning, Tip and Jack Pumpkinhead, along with a Sawhorse that they bring to life who serves Jack's ride, are just trying to escape away from Mombi. However, they discover a Revolutionary Army led by General Jinjur who is planning on taking over the land of Oz.

Jinjur makes pretty good progress in conquering the country, particularly when you consider that her basic strategy is to have an army of women who the men won't fight back against. She also gets Mombi as an ally, agreeing to help get Tip. Mombi proves to have some pretty powerful magical chops.

Tip picks up some allies of his own, our old pals the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, along with the Woggle-Bug and the flying Gump. Tip isn't just trying to escape Mombi. He now needs to find the lost princess of Oz, Ozma, who is also the rightful ruler of Oz.

Ultimately, Tip is able to get the help of Glenda the Good, who is more powerful than Mombi and who has an army of girls of her own, only they actually are willing to fight. The balance of power shifts and our heroes win the civil war.

The final twist is that Mombi had hidden away Ozma by transforming her into a boy. Yes, Tip has been looking for himself the whole time. One transgender transformation later, Tip has become the fairy princess Ozma and peace at last reigns over the land of Oz.

Seriously, this is probably one of the most dynamic books in the entire series. Oz has a major civil war, the protagonist has a far more extreme revelation than there's no place like home, and the government is completely replaced.

That said, the summation makes the book seem a lot more dramatic than it really is. There's a lot of silly stuff and the entire civil war is tongue-in-cheek social commentary as opposed to a violent confrontation.

As I understand it, one of the driving forces behind Baum writing the book was a success of the stage play of the Wizard of Oz. Said play had a lot more slapstick vaudeville elements then the original book. The Land of Oz definitely has more slapstick bits then really any other book in the series.

As it turns out, since they couldn't get the actors who played the Scarecrow in the Tin Woodman in the play, since they were busy making money hand over fist with the original play, The eventual play got retooled to much more heavily feature the Woggle-Bug, who is possibly the most forgettable and disliked reoccurring character in the entire series. It was a crashing flop. Probably for the best, since the books after the Land of Oz were definitely written as books, as opposed to potential scripts.

As quirky as the Land of Oz is, it does introduce Ozma, who is the second most important character in the series after Dorothy. It also gives us Jack Pumpkinhead and the sawhorse, two more characters who are regular members of the Oz posse in the books to come.

After the Land of Oz, the books settle down to a more consistent tone. And Oz starts getting described as the happiest fairyland in all the world. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz got everything started. The Marvelous Land of Oz, though, so the book that you read to find out what else is out there.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54