Aside from my weekly Oziana short story, I've been reading a lot of Oz and Oz-related books lately. I've just lacked the time to tell you about them! But I'm on a holiday break right now, so let's do a little catching up!
- Phoebe Daring is one of the few books by L. Frank Baum that I don't own, and hadn't even read until earlier this year. But now that it's available on Project Gutenberg, I decided to at least download it onto my Kindle and read it. It sure felt familiar, because like the many Mary Louise/Josie O'Gorman books I've read recently, it's a mystery being solved by a strong-willed young woman. One of the two lawyers in town passes away, and important papers belonging to one of the richest and most unpleasant women in town have gone missing. The lawyer's lame clerk is accused of the theft, but the Daring family and many others in town believe he didn't do it, even when some of the missing papers are found in his shack. Phoebe leads the campaign to prove his innocence. Naturally she succeeds, but it takes a lot of legwork, dot-connecting, and a couple of visits from the governor (!) before all comes to a satisfying conclusion. Baum actually writes a pretty good mystery, and the Daring twin books definitely sew the seeds for Josie O'Gorman.
- With no new Rachel Cosgrove Payes books coming into my collection soon, I decided to start a reread of Eloise Jarvis McGraw's books, starting with her very first novel, Sawdust in His Shoes. Joe Lang is a circus boy. His parents were circus performers, he's already performing as a bareback rider, and the circus is all he knows. But when an accident in the ring leaves him an orphan, he gets caught in red tape, and must stay behind in small-town Oregon while the courts decide his fate. He rebels at his treatment in the local juvenile detention facility and runs away, and is taken in by a local farm family. Without the circus, Joe doesn't know what to do, and worries about losing his skills as a bareback rider. But with the support and aid of the Dawson family, he learns to balance all parts of his life and get back on his feet again. This is a book that is very much of its time (the book was first published in 1950), and is an extremely promising start to her career. I was also amused at all of the local Oregon place names and landmarks, as I've been in that area and know some of them. Now their all part of the greater Portland-Eugene urban area, and is all well developed, but back then it was mostly rural. So seeing it like it used to be through Eloise's eyes was a lot of fun.
- Fables, Volume 10: The Good Prince. Flycatcher, the former Frog Prince, Regains his memories of the Fabled Lands, and decides it's time to use his knowledge and powers to strike back at the Adversary by carving out a portion of the lands he's conquered and forming a new kingdom. This was an exciting and well-drawn out story, and Fly does a great job. For Ozzy content, we see a bit of Bufkin in the early chapters as he takes on a new role in the administration of Fabletown.
- The Sawhorse of Oz by Harry Mongold. This was one of the first books outside of the Famous Forty ever published, and I bought it when it first came out in 1981. I'm not sure why this one is named after the Sawhorse, since he doesn't even show up until halfway through the book, and doesn't really do that much in it. The story focuses on Krook, an ambitious Gillikin farmer who feels he deserves so much more. He finds a mysterious device that answers questions, so he decides to try to conquer Oz. He finds he needs a silver chest being held in the Tin Woodman's castle. But he keeps asking the wrong questions, and ends up traveling with Dorothy, Betsy, the Scarecrow, and the Tin Woodman. They have adventures that don't quite seem to go anywhere, and then Krook is finally stopped and dealt with. At the time it was published, this was exciting, as it was all so new. But now, it just feels fractured and overextended.
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