The Road to Oz

This is the fifth book in the Oz series and it certainly feels as though Baum had given up. I know that he wrote the sequels in the first place in response to fan letters (and he certainly packs a lot of fan service into the books, so good to know geeks were around over a hundred years ago too), but by this book he seemed to have no idea for a story at all. Don't write a novel until you have an idea!

Previously when Dorothy has travelled to a fairy land, it has been due to some cataclysmic event. A cyclone, a storm at sea, an earthquake. But in this book, she is just walking along a road. That is a lot less exciting. She then proceeds to travel with some new companions through a few bizarre towns in exactly the same format as the show more previous book. Once again she is accompanied by an adult man who deals with all the danger and decision-making, so Dorothy might as well not be here. At least in her first two adventures (books 1 and 3), she was the protagonist. There is almost no plot here. The first three Oz books were about the characters dealing with problems and foes, but such ideas of story seem to have gone out of the window. The entire plot of this book is 'Ozma has a birthday party'. That should be the plot of a picture book, not a novel!

As for the characters, sure fans will look forward to seeing their old favourites again, but these characters actually need to do something! Baum insists on again introducing a bunch of bland newbies, here Shaggy Man, Button-Bright and Polychrome, who add nothing to the texture of the story. When Dorothy gets to Oz, she is happy to see her besties Scarecrow, Tin Man, Tik-Tok and Billina, but why can't she have an adventure with THEM instead of a bunch of boring strangers? Meanwhile we are told over and over that everyone loves Ozma because she is pretty. Seriously? What happened to the personality Ozma used to have when she was Tip? This book also introduces a bunch of characters from Baum's non-Oz novels. They don't do much, they are just guests at the party, but if you like that kind of intertextuality, I guess you'll get a kick out of it.

I think this addition to the series is only notable for being the one that explains not to worry, Jack Pumpkinhead isn't dead.

I really hope the rest of the books in the Oz series are not all like this one. show less

Before this book, Baum was still desperately trying to get out of the job of Royal Historian of Oz, but he now appears to be resigned to the futility of his quest.
This volume phones it in, just checking the boxes readers expected. Even so, there are some delightful inventions, and traces of Baum's characteristic quiet satire.

2019-10-21 reading:
Baum has consciously rejected his version of Ozma's history in the second Oz book (The Land of Oz), where the Wizard usurped her father's throne and gave the infant princess to Witch Mombie to raise.
(That history is the one more evident the "Wicked" book and musical. There is discussion on the internet about this memory hole of Baum's.)

There is no real overall plot, jut just the parade of show more characters. Baum's maxims are very clearly the optimistic utopian socialism of the early 1900s, although they were less blatant in earlier books.

2016 NOTES: p. 24 Shaggy Man tells a story about the nature of bears (and lies about how he got the Love Magnet); p55 the Fox King disputes Aesop's depiction of them in the fables (a start on PC, as they others do not dispute him "because he ought to know the nature of foxes better than men did"; p. 110 the Scoodlers do love the Shaggy Man - in soup; p 165 The Tin Woodman affirms that they have no use for money in OZ, "for what one wishes the others all try to give him, in order to hake him happy, and no one in all Oz cares to have more than he can use." -- a celestial ideal impossible in the world.
p. 168 one of his punning jokes "the Rainbow's daughter missed her mist-cakes, by a mistake Miss Polly's mist-cakes were mislaid and not missed until now."
p. 170 on Tik-tok (surely one of the earliest depictions of robots?) and that one can be respected without being loved: "Perhaps it is better to be a machine that does its duty than a flesh-and-blood person who will not, for a dead truth is better than a live falsehood."
p 180: unknown word: "It's a very slimpsy affair altogether, that bear rug (brought to life)";
p. 185 Hungry Tiger asking Dorothy not to reveal that he doesn't eat fat babies: "you'll ruin my reputation if you are not more discreet. It is n't what we are, but what folks think we are, that counts in this world." (but they don't have money!)
p. 195 despite Baum's populism every republican is at heart an aristocrat-enabler: "it was easy to see that Polychrome was used to splendid palaces and was therefore entitled to special attention" (same in Freckles and George MacDonald's books).

p. 208 Shaggy Man's true story of stealing the Love Magnet from a girl who was being quarreled over by the young men but when she lost it only her true love remained.
p. 217 the Scarecrow points out that the ignorant child Button-Bright isn't necessarily named for a polished button, but perhaps one covered in dull cloth.
p. 250 the Winkie band plays "There's No Plate like Tin" at the birthday party for Ozma.

p. 265 in the Aferward, Peter Glassman draws attention to the place in the book where the fox-captain commends Button-Bright for asking questions Because if you don't ask questions you will learn nothing." and calls him very clever indeed (although BB doesn'r ever seem to learn from the answers. show less

Like Marvelous Land of Oz, Road to Oz is one where my childhood copy was a Puffin Classic. The Puffin edition of Marvelous Land was sparsely illustrated... the Puffin of Road was not illustrated at all! Thus it is probably little wonder that Road was never one of my favorite Oz novels, with no pictures to fire the imagination. I eagerly picked up the Books of Wonder facsimile, then, as I knew that—like the original—it had colored paper for pages. Though this is (I think) the only one of Baum's original fourteen to have no color illustrations, the colors shift as the characters travel from land to land as they progress from Kansas to the Emerald City. I found the colors somewhat ill-chosen (why are the Winkie chapters not yellow!?), show more but they definitely worked as intended on my three-year-old son, who was excited every time the pages changed color, and often demanded we skip ahead so they would change color. ("I want to read a green chapter!") The illustrations are great, too, and I'm sorry I didn't have them as a child.

Road is a pretty aimless Oz novel. Unlike in previous Oz journey narratives (Wonderful Wizard and Dorothy and the Wizard), there's little sense of impetus or threat. The characters have to get to Oz in time for a birthday party. Not exactly high stakes. On top of that, they get there about two-thirds of the way through, and the last third is just descriptions of people coming to the party and games they play and revisits with characters from previous books (we see the Tin Woodman's Tin Castle and Jack Pumpkinhead's giant pumpkinhead house; Billina updates us on how many progeny she has). So this is the other reason this one has never ranked highly.

But it turns out that if you're reading one or two chapters aloud a day, that something is episodic isn't a bug... it's a feature! The book becomes a succession of short stories. Maybe Baum knew what he was doing after all. I did particularly like the encounter with the Scoodlers (I love Button-Bright's "don't want to be soup!"), and Son One seemed to be into Johnny Dooit. Indeed, he was pretty into this one overall, telling me he had a dog head after we read about Button-Bright and the Shaggy Man getting fox and donkey heads, and repeating Button-Bright's trademark "don't know" a lot and even telling his mother about John Dough, the living gingerbread man (a crossover with Baum's John Dough and the Cherub, the only of Baum's Nonestic/Burzee fantasies I don't own). He was also quick to point out that my Shaggy Man voice is pretty much my Scarecrow voice. Hey, a guy can only make so many voices.

I did still think it dragged once they got to Oz, though. And everyone here seems to totally forget about Ozma and Dorothy's daily Magic Picture check-in from the previous book! Which, to be fair, would end this book before it started... but that's why it was such a bad idea to begin with. show less

When a shaggy traveler asks Dorothy Gale the way to Butterfield, the helpful young Kansas girl sets out to show him the way, only to find herself caught up in another magical adventure when the road inexplicably shifts, leading her and her companion into fairyland. Soon meeting Button Bright, a beautiful but not-so-clever toddler, as well as Polychrome, the lost daughter of the rainbow, the companions slowly make their way closer and closer to Oz, hoping to attend Ozma's upcoming birthday celebration. On their way they encounter a kingdom of foxes, a society of donkeys, and a group of sinister Scoodlers. With the help of magical jack-of-all-trades Jonny Dooit, they manage to cross the great desert surrounding Oz, and are soon on their show more way to the Emerald City, there to witness the pomp and ceremony of Ozma's great celebration...

Originally published in 1909, this fifth Oz book from L. Frank Baum is quite interesting for the author's fans (more on that anon), although not one of the stronger Oz stories, judged on its own merits. Despite his 'love magnet,' I have always had troubling taking the Shaggy Man as much to heart as I wanted to - he always seems as if he should be more endearing than he is - and have always found Button Bright distinctly annoying. Polychrome is an appealing character, but as is often the case with Baum, she is underdeveloped. The story is somewhat disjointed, and its eventual object - getting the travelers to the Emerald City for Ozma's birthday - never feels particularly compelling. That said, I was charmed by the multicolored paper used for this facsimile edition of the book - a tribute to Polychrome, perhaps? - and enjoyed picking out all the references to Baum's other works, in the attendees at Ozma's party. There are figures from other Oz stories, from the Royal family of Ev (Ozma of Oz) to the Braided Man (Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz), as well as characters from non-Oz fantasies, like Queen Zixi of Ix, Dot and Tot in Merryland, John Dough and the Cherub, and The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus. Despite the pleasure of identifying these characters, The Road to Oz is only a low three-star read for me, and would probably only merit two, were I not sentimentally attached to it, after reading it in childhood. show less

A pleasure to return to Oz for another bumpy ride with Baum. The Scoodlers, who are able to remove their own heads and use them as weapons, provided some of my favorite surreal passages:
Presently every Scoodler of the lot had thrown its head, and every head was down in the deep gulf, and now the helpless bodies of the creatures were mixed together in the cave and wriggling around in a vain attempt to discover what had become of their heads. The shaggy man laughed and walked across the bridge to rejoin his companions.
Button-Bright seems like Baum's version of Bartleby the Scrivener, repetitiously answering most every question with "Don't know."
The book lost some steam toward the end, as descriptions of grand dinners and lavish show more celebrations with lists of those in attendance lose something in the telling. Still, I enjoyed the book and look forward to reading "The Emerald City..." next, whenever I feel like a return visit. show less

I read many, many of the Oz books in my childhood and the characters in The Road to Oz were some of my favorites -- after the characters in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz of course.

Even now as an adult often think of the Shaggy Man and his Love Magnet (Love Magnet meant something rather different in 1909 than it does today.) And Button Bright became a term of endearment in my family. The plot isn't as interesting as some of the other Oz books -- Rinkitink in Oz for example. But the escape from the altogether repellent Scoodlers provides great entertainment. Not the best of the Oz sequels, but still a lot of fun.

I'm torn on how to write a review of this particular Oz book. Although I do love the series dearly (up until this point), this book fell sadly flat for me. Normally I find myself loving each and every character, but at this point I'm wondering if there is just too much of a good thing.

Even the new characters were lacking in charm for me. Button Bright just seemed like a little brat, The Shaggy Man (and this is NOT Baum's fault) kept putting Shaggy from Scooby-Doo in my minds eye and Polly gave me several urges to smack her.

Of course, there were still some funny moments and I did enjoy portions of the book - so I am hoping that the next one will bring back a little of the love for me and perhaps provide me with characters that are a bit show more more like-able than this latest set. show less