The Scarecrow of Oz

This novel unites Baum's Trot and Cap'n Bill books with his Oz ones by bringing those two characters (along with Button-Bright) to live in Oz. The writers of the late, lamented Oz blog Burzee were skeptical of what Baum claims in his foreword, that his readers wanted him to bring Trot and Cap'n Bill to Oz, but going on the sample of reading the books aloud to my three-year-old son, it's entirely believable; he'd been campaigning for it since we read The Sea Fairies, and continued to campaign for it throughout this book. "When are they going to get to Oz???" he'd plaintively ask about once a chapter.

This is the one of Baum's original fourteen Oz novels that I remembered the least about going into it. Beyond the fact that Trot and Cap'n show more Bill and Button-Bright made it to Oz in the end, I could have told you literally nothing about it. While I remember many of the early novels in exhaustive detail, everything from this point on is a bit murkier, yet for each novel I could give you some capsule plot... except this one. All of the places they visited were totally new to me; the adventure the characters had with the Scarecrow in Jinxland upon finally getting to Oz did not strike a single chord of memory.

It's a bit surprising because though I don't think it would ever be a favorite, it has some fun bits. The subterranean explorations that open the novel are well done, the visit to Pessim's island is entertaining, Cap'n Bill comes across better than ever. Back in Sea Fairies, he was very skeptical about magic; now he comes across as very practical about it. It's him who comes up with many of the characters' best plans, applying down-to-earth problem-solving skills to extraordinary situations. My son was particularly taken with the trip to Mo (Baum once again crossing over with one of his other fantasies, in this case The Magical Monarch of Mo) where it rains lemonade and snows popcorn, and while taking a car ride during this book we spent some time imagining what all the other kinds of Mo weather could embody. I don't remember having much of an opinion of Button-Bright as a child, but I find him highly entertaining now, and I think Scarecrow is the best depiction in the series of his almost supernatural ability to get lost. (It does seem a shame after how big a deal was made over his Magic Umbrella in Sky Island, that he just loses it between books here!)

One thing I appreciated is that I felt like it had more illustrations than Tik-Tok of Oz, where they had seemed somewhat sparse, with many pages passing with no visuals. Scarecrow of Oz constantly had something of visual interest to look at.

On the other hand, for a book called The Scarecrow of Oz, it really does not show off the Scarecrow at his best. Do his brains solve the crisis in Jinxland? No, not at all. It's just luck! A bit disappointing; Baum often seemed to forget in the later books to actually show the Scarecrow being smart!

My son seemed to like it on the whole. During the sequence where the Scarecrow was threatened with burning, though, he hid under his covers. It's interesting; sequences of physical danger didn't seem to affect him much in the earlier books, but as we go on and his understanding of the stories is growing, they can scare him more and more. On the other hand, what is disturbing to an adult is something he just doesn't get. In this one, we learn that since people in Oz live forever, if you dispose of an old king by throwing him into a lake and dropping stones on him, he's just down there forever!

My son was taken by the Ork, the bird with a propeller for a tail, so much that we built one together out of Duplo.

During the time period we were reading this, at one point we were playing and my son turned to me and said, "Dad, why do we live in Florida?" "What do you mean?" I asked cautiously, not really wanting to explain the academic job market. "Why don't we live in Oz?"

Good question. show less

Pretty standard Oz fare. Pleasant read, but I was kind of disappointed that this one wasn't really *about* the Scarecrow. He figured into the second half of the book, but I wanted something more like The Tin Woodman of Oz, which went into more depth on the title character.

The ninth book in the Oz series doesn't feel much like an Oz book at all. We start outside of Oz, with two characters who have nothing to do with Oz. I was about a third of the way in before I realised that they were characters from some of Baum's other, non Oz books, so this is a sequel to THAT series. They eventually meet up with a character who was in a previous Oz book, but it was the worst one and he added nothing to that, and as it turns out he was also a character in their previous books, so this is still not an Oz book. I think around the halfway point they do finally reach Oz but it is conveniently a part that is completely cut off from the rest of Oz. No explanation for how they are able to land in Oz, they just fly through a show more cloud, but the whole point of Oz being cut off from the rest of the world back in book 6 was to protect them from air travel so that makes no sense. About two thirds in, the Scarecrow of the title finally wanders in so at this point I guess it counts as an Oz book, but it is a pretty weak attempt at tying it into the series. The story overall is entertaining, it has a little more structure than the weakest of the stories, but I just don't understand why Baum had no interest in writing about the established characters. At the end the human characters just settle down in Oz, despite having families on the outside and with no concern from Ozma despite in previous books she making it clear that she can't just let anyone who wanders in settle in Oz. It all just seems like every book must now give Dorothy a new friend to hang out with. There will soon be dozens of little girls wandering around Oz. So, not a bad book but it is a bad sequel. show less

Honestly, though it pains me to say it - the titular character is my favorite one in the series, after all - this is one of Baum's weaker Oz books, obviously written at a time when he felt okay about reusing old material. The first half is the abandoned sequel to The Sea Fairies and Sky Island; the second half is adapted from Baum's unsuccessful silent film, His Majesty, the Scarecrow. It just about coheres together, but it's not terribly exciting. Weirdly, Baum even violated one of his core rules by including a thwarted romance plotline. Weirder still, that's one of the better parts of the book!

Baum's "The Scarecrow of Oz" sees two of his creations from another book finding their way to the land of oz. I personally had never been introduced to these other characters as I have never read the other book. This fact does not take away from the joy of reading this book though. In many ways it can add to it because after you are finished if you desire you can find another adventure containing them.

This book, out of all the oz books I have read to date, is probably my favorite of the series because it felt that Baum was comfortable with his own writing and also what he wanted to convey with this story about the land of oz. I have stated in my other reviews of the Oz books that there have been times that you could tell that Baum was show more over telling stories of this other world, but you can tell in this book that he was having fun. It seemed like a switch had finally went off in his head that he could still create wonderful characters regardless of them eventually ending up in Oz. This made this book very strong in my opinion.

The creatures while fantastical in nature, which is the point of new characters in these books to be larger than life, seemed to also be rooted in a more "real world" understanding of what a character is. The Ork is something that you would think you would see at any zoo you went to but you realize it was not a real bird ever. This contrasts to some of the creatures in the previous books that you felt could never exist in any capacity. Also these creatures seemed more geared towards a bit older generation, not adults but slightly older than a child, because he actually spends time describing things in a manner that he didn't do in the previous books that give the creatures/characters a different type of life. One that seems to again contrast with some of the other characters like the Woozy that was introduced in a previous volume that felt it was geared specifically for small children.

Baum has found himself as an author in my opinion in this book and as a result produced a book that is really wonderful to read. His books are never high literature by any mean nor do they have any particular deep message most of the time, but they are fun reads full of adventure and intrigue that are worth reading. show less

I love all the Oz books! This is the one in which a little girl named Trot and her sailor pal Cap’n Bill come to Oz. They meet a lot of lovable characters like the Bumpy Man and Button Bright, and they help the Scarecrow solve a problem with the monarchy of Jinxland.

Meh. Not nearly as good as the previous books. And I suspect it included the Scarecrow in the title to encourage sales despite the fact that the Scarecrow had a very small and belated role in the book. I didn't find any of the main characters in this one to be very engaging.