The Lost Princess of Oz

After the one-two punch of reading The Scarecrow of Oz and Rinkitink aloud to my three-year-old, I felt like I was missing the Oz characters. Sure, they showed up in those massive celebrations at the end of each book (by now a traditional way for Baum to squeeze in all your favorite characters) but I missed all those folks, you know? Baum must have felt the same way (or, rather, known his readers would) because Lost Princess of Oz contrives to include a large number of familiar characters.

The premise here is that overnight, a number of things vanish: Glinda's Great Book of Records, the magical tools of both Glinda and the Wizard, Ozma's Magic Picture, (in the far-off Yip Country) a Magic Dishpan... and Ozma herself! Our characters must show more search the country without any of their customary powers at their disposal. They divide into four search parties, one for each of the four quadrants of Oz. Without any actual leads, their plans are apparently to just wander around looking for stuff; it seems to me that had Ozma been in the Gillikin Country, being searched by the Shaggy Man, his brother, Tik-Tok, and Jack Pumpkinhead, she might be lost still. Thankfully, she turns out to be in the Winkie Country, which is (wow what a coincidence) being search by the largest group, consisting of Dorothy, Trot, Betsy Bobbin, Button-Bright, the Wizard, Scraps the Patchwork Girl, the Cowardly Lion, the Woozy, the Sawhorse, and Toto. As they go, even more join the group: the Frogman, Cayke the Cookie Cook, and the Lavender Bear.

For the most part, Baum does an okay job by this large cast of characters. The Wizard gets some good problem-solving moments, and Scraps's sideways logic also comes in handy at times. Button-Bright's ability to get lost actually turns out to be a key plot point. The animal characters don't contribute much to the plot, but there are a couple scenes where they talk to each other a lot; in fact, Toto talks an unprecedented amount here, a marked contrast to his reticence to speak in Tik-Tok. The Woozy never really does anything, though; I have a feeling that Baum included him just because Neill like drawing him. (In many of the books, Neill includes the Woozy in crowd scenes where he is not mentioned in the text; this book has an illustration of the Woozy wearing an apron and doing dishes in the Magic Dishpan! Not a thing that actually happens but a delight to look at.)

The main issue is that having all three girls in the group is pretty pointless: narratively Dorothy, Trot, and Betsy are the same, and thus Trot and Betsy end up largely not doing anything. I think if Baum wanted to flesh out the relationship between the three girls (which would be a fun thing to do), he would have had to do something like make it be just the three of them. Or if he wanted to give Trot and Betsy something to do, he should have sent them out with other search parties (and given those search parties something to do). The working title was Three Girls in Oz, but reading the finished book, you can see why he dropped it.

Anyway, the whole thing is good fun. It does sort of beggar belief that Dorothy's search party finds Ozma in the third place they look after setting out in a totally random direction, and some of the rules Baum imposes on this "mystery" don't really make any sense (the characters conclude that Ozma must be in Oz because no one can cross the Deadly Desert... two books ago, Trot herself flew into Oz over the Deadly Desert!), and Baum seems to forget how the Magic Belt works (but if it did work here as it had in Ozma of Oz, the book would end around chapter five).

But it does the thing I like an Oz book to do: interesting places to visit, weird problems for the characters to reason their ways out of, good interactions between the characters. The misdirection of the clues about where Ozma is according to the truth-speaking Little White Bear are pretty cleverly done. I like any Oz book with Button-Bright comedy. I don't know what's up with the "Toto loses his growl subplot" but it is entertaining. The Frogman is an interesting character... though my favorite new character was Corporal Waddle, the little toy brown bear soldier who takes himself and his useless popgun very seriously. Stay tuned for Corporal Waddle in Oz?

My son seemed to enjoy it: lots of characters doing fun things. When I asked, he said, "I liked it the same as Rinkitink. I liked the good parts but didn't like the bad parts." The "bad parts" turned out to be the passage detailing how Ugu the Shoemaker traveled around Oz stealing all the magical implements and kidnapping Ozma. He also began telling me about his own oz book, [His Name] in Oz, which is exactly the same as The Lost Princess of Oz, except that he presses a button that defeats Ugu the Shoemaker so no one gets kidnapped! But more on that book in future installments...

One other thing to note: this is the first set-in-Oz novel Baum wrote after the publication of Tik-Tok, which included for the first time detailed maps of Oz. You can tell, because the descriptions of Oz geography suddenly become much more detailed and consistent here; Baum talks about rivers in the Winkie Country are, and what characterizes different regions of it. He continues to pay attention to geography in this way over the remaining three of his Oz novels, unlike the somewhat ad hoc way he had described things previously. show less

There's a very real chance that this is the best book in the entire series: it's adventurous, funny, reflective, strange, and just a tiny bit meta-fictional ahead of its time. If the Oz books had stopped here, it certainly would have been L. Frank Baum's crowning achievement. Regardless, though, it is far and away better than any sequel written by any of his successors, as well as most of his own both before and afterward.

If your kid has never read an Oz book, give them this one.

I picked this book up on a whim - actually, the copy I got from the library has more of a green cover than the blue pictured here, and the green caught my eye on the shelf as I was walking towards the check-out. I saw the giant frog and knew I just had to see what it was. I've never read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz or any of L. Frank Baum's works...and he was extremely prolific both in the land of Oz and outside of it.

The Lost Princess of Oz is the 11th of 14 books he wrote about the land of Oz, the penultimate Oz publication prior to his death in 1919. The plot revolves around the disappearance of Ozma, the fairy princess ruler of Oz (introduced several books earlier, it seems that when the Wizard came to Oz the first time, he had show more hidden Ozma, making himself the ruler of Oz). Also missing is Glinda's great book of records (like a ticker, has up to the minute updates on everything that happens in the land of Oz), the wizard's bag of tricks (the real source of his "powers", Ozma's magic picture (which acts much like the mirror in Disney's Beauty and the Beast) and, missing from another part of Oz altogether, a baking pan made of gold and decorated with diamonds (which not only is the only pan the owner seems to be able to use to make unburnt cookies, but is also magical in its abilities to transport someone, much like the use of a port key in Harry Potter.

Ozma's friends (among whom Dorothy (now a princess of Oz), the Wizard and the Cowardly Lion are counted) trek across the unknown wilds to find their fairy princess while, from the opposite direction, the owner of the cookie pan and her friend (a man-sized sentient frog) set off in search of the stolen item. The story is therefore told from two directions for the first 80% of it or so, until the two parties meet, finding that all that they are missing seems to be in the same place.

The story is told well. Baum was an excellent writer. But not having the previous 10 books in my mental archive worked against me a little bit. This is where Wikipedia came in. So I cheated a little. Don't care. It helped. Otherwise, I would have spent the entire read going "wait...why is Dorothy in Oz? And....who are all these people??" But doing so created one issue, and that was the actions of the Wizard. Without spoiling too much, in The Lost Princess of Oz the culprit is a magical being (they would have to be to steal Ozma and all of those things all in one night!) who acts out of greed.

As I mentioned before, Ozma has a history of going missing - the Wizard had hidden her as a baby when he came to Oz, removing her from the throne and essentially placing himself there. I knew this before I dug into the book. But when we get to the meat of it - when we discover who took her and how, etc. there is no sign of past remorse or any emotion really on the part of the Wizard who, now in the good graces of her majesty, should be reminded of his actions. According to wikipedia (and I read this part only after I'd finished the book) when the Wizard comes back to Oz in the fourth Oz book, he has no idea who Ozma is, and there is no mention of his actions even though, just two books beforehand, Baum explained it all. It's an issue of continuity and maybe an issue of literary license. Perhaps Baum just figured it would be easier to say that all was forgiven, etc.

But, as a reader, knowing what he had done, and then encountering the business of this book, it takes away any serious weight the book might have...it is simply cheery and good-natured, as if nothing bad could ever really happen in the land of Oz, which is a lie.

Lauren Cartelli
www.theliterarygothamite.com show less

I feel like Baum was responding to what the fans want with this one, because he certainly addresses some of the things I have been asking for (a hundred years later). Firstly the story is genuinely set in Oz and is about established Oz characters, so this really is a proper sequel again. Secondly we have some actual peril in the story, huzzah! Ozma has gone missing. Since Baum always avoids peril I was afraid that there would be some cutesy explanation, but no, we have a real bad guy again. Thirdly, Glinda, the Wizard and Ozma have had their magical powers and artefacts stolen so no cheating their way out of this one! All right! I think the real aim of this story was to show Dorothy hanging out with Betsy and Trot (and Scraps), the show more characters who were introduced in the latter books. However, since Betsy and Trot add absolutely nothing to the story, they might as well not be in it.

This is where Baum goes and Baums it all up again. Despite the fact that there is a genuine mystery and real peril to be faced, the story is yet another 'travel from A to B and discover funny towns of weirdos along the way'. As usual I have no idea why he has selected this random bunch of characters to be the focus of the story. All the Oz regulars have gone out in search of Ozma, but we focus on Dorothy's group which consists of: Toto, the Cowardly Lion, the Wizard (who since Book 4 is basically Dorothy's guardian... despite her actual guardians living in Oz), the Sawhorse, Button Bright, Scraps, the Woozy, Betsy and her mule Hank and Trot. I guess logically the idea here is the little kids, their steeds and one adult to look after them, but as a ragtag team, it could have been a lot more interesting. They don't even call in reinforcements when they figure out what is going on, despite the Wizard inventing the mobile phone in an earlier book (maybe it has been stolen along with all their magic supplies, but what about all the talking birds in Oz, couldn't they be used to send messages between the expeditions?). While there is a villain, they are not established or set up early on, so the revelation to the mystery is pretty random. And while Glinda might have lost her magic and so has her student, the Wizard, the team still manage to meet a magical bear and Dorothy still has her magic belt from Book 3 (I forget the continuity of this thing) so... yeah they solve their problems with magic despite the book setting up that they can't solve their problems with magic. BAUMMMMM!

Oh well, at least he tried. show less

I don't know why, but this one simply didn't capture my imagination like some of the others. Maybe because, at this point in the series, the whole journey thing has been done to death. This one has Dorothy and the gang trying to find Ozma (and various magical items) which had been stolen. Meh.

After seeing the classic movie and reading the book, I fell in love with Oz - and little did I know, there was more of it to read about!
For anyone who loves Baum's fantastical world, this book is a great continuation.
As Dorothy travels with her friends to rescue Princess Ozma, you meet more inhabitants of Oz like Cayke the Cookie Cook, Button-Bright, and Little Pink Bear.
A fun addition to the Oz saga!

L. Frank Baum is an author I have read many times since I first discovered him in second grade. I find that his books stand up to the test of time and they are books that I enjoy re-reading. Some of them are stronger than others but as a whole I quite enjoy both the stories and characters.