Ozma of Oz

The third book in the Oz series, but the first I read. Baum has a wonderful imagination, unlike anything else I know - he can conjure up total nonsense but describe it so vividly that you totally get what he's saying, and combined with his delightful wit, his stories are fun and magical.

However, if he has a flaw, I'd say it was in his characterisation - in that, there isn't enough of it. He fills his stories with dozens of wacky characters, but they have very little personality between them. His heroes may be very sensible or very silly, but they are nearly all incredibly brave and calm.

As much I enjoy the story of Ozma Of Oz, which is often quite eerie, at no point in the story do I ever worry about Dorothy, because she never show more worries. Baum explains this by saying that due to her previous adventures she really can't be shocked any more, but considering the almost continuous stream of dicey situations she gets into, she remains zen and mostly unbothered at all times, which really renders her rather dull. It takes away a lot of the excitement that should be building, and there is only one moment at the very end of the book, when she becomes concerned for Uncle Henry's health, that any emotional stakes are played at all. I guess this is because it is a children's adventure, and Baum didn't want his readers getting upset, but I always liked a book that could make you cry as well as make you laugh.

Still, it's a neat and fantastical story that's certainly worth a read if you don't know it, though perhaps more for a younger audience. I've had my book for many many years. I like how Baum writes strong female role models (pretty revolutionary for his time) and also how much the characters genuinely care for each other, come what may. show less

This one might be my favorite. It has it all... new, interesting characters, a few dashes of genuine creepiness and danger, and great art too. I am noticing now that Baum was very careful to illustrate that Tin Woodman and Scarecrow are in a relationship, for anyone who wants to read between the lines. The core mechanics of this book are very, very solid--so much so that they were used for the creepy Return to Oz movie.

I feel like Baum got his mojo back here after the stumble that was The Marvelous Land of Oz. I read this aloud to my toddler, and I think reading something aloud makes you aware of the pacing and the energy of the text. Like Wonderful Wizard, Ozma of Oz has a great, arresting opening that immediately plunges the reader (or listener) into adventure: Dorothy is on a ship at sea, a wave knocks her overboard, and soon she is adrift, clinging onto a chicken coop. It must have captured my son's attention, because soon he was sitting in a cardboard box on the floor, claiming to be floating in the ocean himself. Also like Wizard, Baum does a good job of introducing a set of weird characters who make contributions to the story: Billina the show more Yellow Hen is an utter delight, and surely one of the best Oz characters Baum ever devised, and I had great fun reading her dialogue aloud in a chicken voice. I also really like Tiktok, but found him hard to perform. It's okay to read in a monotone for a single line of dialogue, but sometimes he gets a page-long expository speech! Both Billina and Tiktok contribute to the problem-solving, unlike Marvelous Land's gang of misfits; indeed, it sometime seems that Dorothy is just along for the ride! This is the book where Baum begins making her speech less formal and precise, with contractions and mispronunciations that weren't present in Wonderful Wizard (even though, going by Neill's illustrations, she must be a couple years older).

I also had good fun reading the Hungry Tiger. (He doesn't contribute much, to be honest, but he is there.) And Langwidere. Really, this book is a delight, one of my favorites to begin with, and reading it aloud brought that out even more so.

This is one where I owned the Del Rey edition growing up; those reproduce the original illustrations, but they are mass market paperbacks, so everything was squished down, so I took the excuse to upgrade to a Books of Wonder facsimile edition, and it was well worth it.

The military humor went over my son's head. I am pretty sure this is the first time I read it where I got it myself! Sometime after we finished the book, he was talking about an "army of books," and I realized from context that he thought the word "army" meant "a big group," which is a pretty reasonable deduction. When I read these aloud, I sometimes massage the continuity and connections between books; for example, in the first book, I called the Emerald City maid who waits on Dorothy "Jellia Jamb" even though she's not given that name until book two. Similarly, here I made it clear that the lone private of the Oz army was the Soldier with the Green Whiskers from the first two books, something that the fourth book seems to indicate but even there isn't explicit about. (He just has a mustache here, not a long beard, but the Soldier did shave off his beard to escape detection by Jinjur's Army of Revolt in Marvelous Land.)

Weird thing I noticed: Billina gains the power of speech because she and Dorothy are in a fairy country, i.e., the Land of Ev... but when Billina interacts with some Ev chickens, we're told she's unusual because none of them can talk! show less

Dorothy Gale returns in this third entry in L. Frank Baum's Oz series, after her notable absence in the second volume, The Marvelous Land of Oz. Traveling with her Uncle Henry to Australia, the Kansas farm-girl is lost at sea during a terrible storm, washed overboard in a chicken coop which serves as an impromptu raft. Together with Billina, a talking hen who is also aboard the coop/raft, Dorothy eventually washes up on the shore of the Land of Ev, a magical country located not far from Oz. Here girl and hen confront the Wheelers - a gang of bullies with wheels instead of hands and feet - rescue a mechanical man named Tiktok from his rocky prison, and earn the severe displeasure of the Princess Langwidere, ruling in place of the true show more royal family of Ev, who are being held captive by the Gnome King. With Dorothy made a prisoner, Tiktok immobilized, and Billina slated for the dinner table, matters look grim, until Ozma of Oz and her entourage arrive, using a magical carpet to traverse the seemingly impassable desert separating Oz and Ev. After a council of war, Ozma and her companions - the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, Cowardly Lion, Hungry Tiger, and a number of fairly useless army officers, as well as Dorothy and Billina - set out to rescue the royal family of Ev from captivity.

Despite its title, Ozma of Oz is a book which, like The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, has as its main heroine Dorothy Gale, who once again finds herself transported to enchanted realms by severe acts of nature. I enjoyed meeting up with Dorothy again, and found Billina, although an unlikely companion, actually quite appealing as a character, with her tart retorts, and practical sangfroid in the face of astonishing adventures. Ozma of Oz has always been one of my favorites of the Oz series, partly because I feel the story works so well overall - although a distinct pleasure of my youth, there is no denying that some of the stories in the Oz series feel a little bit scattered, almost as if they were travelogues, with an endless supply of new characters, rather than significant development of existing ones - and partly because of some of the more memorable incidents. Princess Langwidere's cabinet of heads has certainly stuck with me over the years, as has Billina's triumph, in discovering the Gnome King's secret, and using it to free the royal family of Ev. As always, the artwork here is gorgeous! I particularly like the portrait of Ozma at the beginning of the book, and then the plate in which she and her entourage are crossing the desert. The latter is undoubtedly the inspiration for the subsequent Del Rey paperback cover-art. However that may be, this is an entertaining and fantastical story, one of the strongest in the series. I recommend it to any child who enjoys whimsical adventures, with the proviso that they really must read the first two Oz books beforehand. show less

Now thoroughly committed to continuing the Oz series, Baum explains how Dorothy re-enters Oz through the Land of Ev on the other side of the desert One wonders why Glinda didn't tell the Wizard about her magic carpet. However,
Baum also conveniently forgets that the Wizard gave Ozma to Mombi in order to usurp her throne. See also "Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz."

Billina the Hen, cast adrift with Dorothy when they go overboard ship in a storm, ends up being the heroine, by chance and temperament. All Dorothy's friends from the first book show up, along with a new Hungry Tiger, but they and Ozma are really secondary characters.
Despite everyone's tender feelings and kindness, they have no compunction about destroying the Nome King's Army.

As show more usual, Baum slips some social satire for adults into his tale, particularly skewering military pomp (26 officers and 1 private, and only the private has any courage, for which he actually receives his due reward).

The snark at the end of the book about colleges being useless is still very timely.
p. 174: "That is the College of Art and Athletic Perfection...I had it built quite recently, and the Woggle-Bug is its president. It keeps him busy and the young men who attend the college are no worse off than they were before. You see, in this country are a number of youths who do not like to work, and the college is an excellent place for them." show less

When I was younger I happened to see a film that many people seem to not know about these days. Yes, it has a cult following, but for the most part it is just an oddity lost in the sands of times. The film is a non-musical sequel to The Wizard of Oz and opens with Dorothy in an insane asylum, everyone convinced she's crazy since she keeps going on and on about Oz. She escapes, is returned to Oz in a storm, and commences to have many adventures with a mechanical man named Tik-Tok and a sassy talking hen named Billina (-ina having been added to her original name, Bill, to make it more feminine since Dorothy can't call her Bill.)

Did I also mention one of the villains were creatures called Wheelers that look like something out of Mad show more Max?


WITNESS ME

I mention all of this, because the bulk of what Return to Oz featured was taken from non-other than this book. The talking chicken, the Wheelers, Tik-Tok, it's all here along with some of the darker bits. There is no insane asylum for Dorothy, but there is some pretty nasty situations that they get into in the land of Ev before Ozma arrives. Even after Ozma arrives, the quest to release the Royal Family of Ev from their imprisonment by the Nome King is no easy task and many might be lost in the trying of it...

I adored this book. Bellina is a wonderful addition and really quite Ozzy. I love the dedication to his readers that starts each volume, and [a: Frank L Baum|3242|L. Frank Baum|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1383720421p2/3242.jpg]'s appreciation for the children he writes for. I love how noble the characters are, how magical the land is, an how utterly insane everything seems. The spirit of Fairy Land is quite real in these books, along with the manifold perils such Fairy Land's often contain. Can't wait to read more!

P.S. The Hungry Tiger is a riot. Someone get him a fat baby. show less

Still loopy but a tad darker. Again, haven't read this in ages; if anything, I remember it better from the cult classic Return to Oz movie, which made for an interesting comparison.But this one gives you lots of fun with Dorothy and the delightful queen Ozma, not to mention an intrepid hen given powers of speech by transition to the fairylands, one of the most Grimm's-ian villains yet with the Nome King and his dangerous guessing game, and my deep and abiding favorite Tik-Tok, whose wind-up personality has a lot more fun to it than he admits--not to mention the endless bickering between the Tin Man and the Scarecrow over who's better off than the poor mechanical fellow (Brains! a heart! etc).It's no wonder this is a lot of people's show more favorite, and I won't argue with it. Might like the pure bizarreness of Marvelous Land a hair better, but that's a matter of taste. show less