The Latest Oz Reading

Yes, I'm reading a lot of Oz stuff again. Not only that, I also have a pile of stuff I've read but not discussed here yet, some going back two or three years now! Yes, it's been a crazy time for me, but I'm on my summer break right now and I'm trying to deal with a lot of the clutter in my life right now, while I have the chance, before my summer gets extremely crazy in a few weeks. But more on that as things get closer, although there may be some hints in what I've been reading. Let's start with some books I've reread:

• The Lost Princess of oz by L. Frank Baum. My slow progression through the Oz books, in order, has reached 1917. Lost Princess is particularly important to me because it was the last of the Baum books I owned as a kid, although I'd read the library's copy first. I then got it for Christmas from my always-supportivg grandparents. Looking in that original Reilly & Lee white edition, I noted the the inscription read 1975. This was a little over a year after I started collecting the books, so this year marks my fiftieth year as an Oz fan! Getting back to the story itself, it does hold up as an exciting adventure. It might seem overwhelming to keep track of as many characters as Baum put into this book, but they're all distinctive (well, except maybe for Betsy Bobbin and Trot), and it's plot is tight. Perhaps Baum should have introduced Ugu a little earlier, but the shock opening of so much Oz magic missing all at once certainly grabs the reader.
• Kabumbo in Oz by Ruth Plumly Thompson. No, I'm not jumping ahead in my FF reading, it's just that the long-delayed Clover Press edition, with new illustartions by Sara Richard, arrived. Richard's style is a lot different from John R. Neill's, but her work is still gloriously Ozzy. Naturally she had to draw Ruggedo as a giant with the palace on his head, and it has the same impact as Neill's version. My biggest complaint is that there aren't enough illustrations. Come on, Clover Press, Oz is such a vivid place, let's see more of what it looks like! If you can't spring for more full-page color illustrations, put some black-and-white line drawings in the text.
• Grampa in Oz by Ruth Plumly Thompson. Since it turns one hundred this year, and I needed some information from it for something coming up, I thought I'd also reread another Thompson book. I've always said that the basic stories of both Kabumpo and Grampa are the same, and reading them back to back just cemented that for me. These are archtypical Thompson, with a prince going out into Oz to save the kingdom and find a wife, only to find that their future bride was already traveling with them under an enchantment. That doesn't make Grampa any less fun, as it also has unusual locations and characters. Grampa didn't strike me as being quite as strong as Kabumpo, but it was still a fun read.
• Visitors from Oz by Martin Gardner. Did I mention my busy summer coming up? I wanted to reread this for another project that's coming up. For a book about Dorothy traveling back to modern-day America, she takes an awfully long time to get there. And when Gardner takes unnecessary side plots, he doesn't mess around! On their way to the remote part of Oz where they can visit America, Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Sawhorse end up visiting the old Greek gods of Olympus and Wonderland! But after these diversions, Dorothy, the Scarecrow, and the Tin Woodman finally make it to modern-day New York to help a movie mogul publicize his upcoming Oz movie. It goes about as well as you'd expect, with the tabloid press accusing them of being actors (and the Tin Woodman a robot), a rival studio sending mobsters to go after them, you know, the usual sort of thing. It is pretty clover, though, and Dorothy has much to contemplate about how much America has changed since she last lived there. This being Gardner, mathematics is used in a clever way to travel between Oz and New York. I think Gardner was much more successful writing articles and essays about Oz, but an a one-time experiment, this is a fun one.
• Master Cornhill by Eloise Jarvis McGraw. My reread of the works of Eloise Jarvis Mcraw has hit the '70s, and this is one of my favorites. Michael Cornhill is eleven and finds himself on his own in London during the Plague and must figure out how to survive. He taken under the wing of Tom Godfrey, a balladeer, but his friend Susanna keeps reminding him that it's not the only, or best, way to make ones lot in life. Then the Great Fire of London strikes, and everyone does all that they can to survive. McGraw had written historicals about ancient Egypt and the Old West, but this is her first one about Great Britian, and it's clear she's done her research. The little details and Michael's reactions feel so genuine and give a real sense of what seventeenth century London must have been like.
• One new book I recently read seems to be the second of a series of non-Oz books by L. Frank Baum, after The Maid of Arran. The new reprint edition of The Art of Decorating Dry Goods Windows and Interiors makes one of Baum's rarest books available again. This is for Baum completists only, as it's exactly what the title says. It's an interesting time capsule of the early days of department stores and how they attracted customers. Baum compiled many clever ways for stores to display their wares and draw people in. Had his fiction writing career not taken off the way it did, this kind of work may have supported Baum instead. Since I've now read some new Baum reprints, I'm now adding Baum's non-Oz books into my regular readings, but most of them I already have and they'll be rereadings.

L. Frank Baum on "Saturday Night Live"!

In case you haven't already seen it, here's a skit from last weekend's edition of Saturday Night Live with a special Ozzy guest star!

Clearly this sketch is not about Oz, it was just an excuse to show people being silly in front of a camera. But here are a few things they didn't quite get right:

1. Where's Baum's big ol' walrus mustache?
2. Why is Baum writing with his right hand? Baum was left-handed.
3. Why is he writing in the streets of New York? He was based in Chicago, and didn't spend a lot of time in New York so far as I know.
4. If he's actually writing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, it would not be the early 1900s. The manuscript was completed in 1899, and published in 1900. But maybe this is another, later book.
5. And that's not a terribly knowledgeable Oz expert if he doesn't correct the host's mention of Dorothy's ruby slippers. (I'm sure you all know that they were silver shoes in the book.) Since L. Frank Baum decorated show windows before turning to writing full time, maybe he was just admiring the fine job they did.

I will give them credit, though, for pronouncing L. Frank Baum's correctly. Also, our Baum "expert" is played by cast member Bowen Yang, who's playing Pfannee in the Wicked movies.

The Latest Oz Reading

Okay, the pile is getting big again, and I still have some material in it that's been sitting here at least a year. So I may as well just do a lightning round version and give some quick impressions rather than my usual drawn-out thoughtful posts. Ready? Here we go!

• The Oracle of Maracoor by Gregory Maguire. Book two of Another Day, the trilogy of Rain's adventures after Out of Oz. The middle book of a trilogy is often the disappointing one, as we all know what's happening now, but there's still a long way to go, but we don't get a definitive conclusion yet. But I'm happy to say that there were some surprises in this one. A few more characters from Oz turn up, and the identity of the titular oracle took me by surprise. Plus, things are set up well for the conclusion.
• The program book for OzCon International 2023. Hey, I've been to every edition of this con since 1980, I wasn't going to stop now! I talked about the one new piece of fiction in it in last week's short story roundup, and for just about everything else, you really had to be there. (Start making plans for next year's con NOW! It will be July 26-28, 2024.)
• Scarlet Witch #7. This issue of Wanda Maximoff's latest comic book series slipped under my comic-buying radar, so I'm thankful that a friend was able to acquire it and send it to me. Yeah, Wanda goes to Oz—and it's book Oz, with mentions of L. Frank Baum and silver shoes. Some interesting mechanics, as I gather the antagonist here is a new character, and one that may cause issues down the road. But Wanda figures out a clever way to get out of a jam, and all is right…for now…
• Return to Oz by Joan D. Vinge. Yes, it's the novelization of the 1985 Disney movie, which I hadn't read for nearly forty years. (Hey, wait a minute, I interviewed Vinge at a panel at OzCon a few years ago, why didn't I get this autographde???) It's a pretty straightforward novelization, but there are a few scenes in it that got cut from the finished movie, and we also get to see inside many characters' heads in ways we couldn't on screen. A fun, nostalgic revisit.
• Stairway to Oz by Robin Hess. Just how did the Shaggy Man's brother get to the Nome Kingdom in Tik-Tok of Oz? This book explains. But the stairway is still active and viable, so when an American boy and his grandparents find it, they have adventures of their own as they try to stop the latest Nome invasion of Oz.
• Geronimo Stilton Classic Tales: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. I knew there was a version of Oz in the long-running Geronimo Stilton series, but for the longest time I could only find the Italian original, and not an English translation. But it finally appeared in English recently, and I was not disappointed. This is a surprisingly faithful retelling of the original book, with charming illustrations and a lot of words enlarged and colored. I presume this is a quirk of this series, but there seemed to be no sense or reason for why those particular words were emphasized. One fun twist is that, since Geronimo Stilton is a mouse, Dorothy and all her friends are depicted as mice. This could have made for a bit of an awkward incident when the Tin Woodman chases off the wildcat. But a little change meant that in this book, doing so rescues the Queen of the Rabbits, not Field Mice!
• Ozma of Oz, or The Magnet of Love by L. Frank Baum. This is one of L. Frank Baum's preliminary scripts for the stage show that would eventually become The Tik-Tok Man of Oz. Let's just say I believe Baum was a better author than he was a playright, even though he probably longed to be the latter more than the former. The biggest change between this script and The Tik-Tok Man of Oz is the songs, as these are all Baum's lyrics. He seems to have found a more sympatico collaborator in Louis F. Gottschalk, because they are head over heels above what's in this book. Still, it's fun seeing into Baum's mind, and the evolution of this show.
• We've had it for a few years now, but I finally got around to reading Lou Scheimer: Creating the Filmation Generation by Lou Scheimer and Andy Mengels. Not only was I part of that generation of kids who watche a lot of Filmation cartoons when they were new, they were responsible for Journey Back to Oz. But this book is also important for Laura, since they also made the Aquaman cartoons back in the '60s, and she's a big Aquaman fan. Oz and Aquaman actually take up very little of this book, but there were so many other shows I know in it that I had a great time reading this. It's much more Scheimer's life story and a chronological history of Filmation, so if you're looking for detailed production notes and episode guides, this is not the book you are looking for. There's still lots of useful information, however.
• And finally, for now, The Maid of Arran by L. Frank Baum. (Full disclosure time: I was a proofreader on this book, and received an acknowledgement for my contributions, small though they were.) Yes, at long last, one of L. Frank Baum's earliest popular works, the play The Maid of Arran, gets a book publication. And what a book it is! It would have been of great interest if it were just the script, maybe with a few annotations and a scholarly essay or two. But editor Marcus Mébès does so much more here! There are a number of essays (plus an original short stoy by Robert Baum about his great-grandfather, later reprinted in Oziana), two chapters from A Princess of Thule by William Black (the novel the play is based on), cast biographies, a complete rundown of where the show played, and contemporary reviews. I don't see what else could fit in here! The highlight is probably "The Peculiar Pedigree of Sheila O'Mara, Maid of Arran" by Éamon S. Green, a thorough examination of the story and how it came to be dramatized—several times! No, Baum was not the first to put it on stage, and therein lies a sordid tale of copyright piracy and the state of nineteenth century show business.

All right, that's it for now. But I hope to have some more quick hits up soon, mostly on comic books and graphic novels.

The Latest Oz Reading

Actually, I have a lot of Oz reading, some that I've read over a year ago now, to catch up on. I hope to do a lot of it before I head to California in a couple of weeks for OzCon International (my forty-third consecutive time at that convention!), but this one is especially important because of some other entries I'll be posting on this blog soon. Don't worry, all will become clear in time.

As you may be aware, I started rereading the Oz books as a regular part of my reading some time ago. The plan was to go in order, but when I chaired the 2016 edition of OzCon, I broke that and read Rinkitink in Oz as we were celebrating that book's centennial, and I wanted to give a few comments on it. Those of you who know your Oz history probably also know that Rinkitink was originaly written as a non-Oz book around 1905. (My suspicion is that he wrote it in the hopes of it being a follow-up to Queen Zixi of Ix and it would also be serialized in St. Nicholas Magazine. I wonder if anyone has checked the files of St. Nicholas, if they're still around, for any correspondence with Baum? But I digress…) At that point, I had only read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and The Marvelous Land of Oz anyway, so I said to myself, "Well, if King Rinkitink had been published as a stand alone book, it would likely have come out between Land and Ozma of Oz anyway. So this is a good insight into Baum's writing of that time." All well and good—until I got through The Scarecrow of Oz. What to read next? After all, I'd already reread Rinkitink in Oz.

For those who may not know, Rinkitink in Oz is an exciting adventure story about Prince Inga of Pingaree whose home is conquered and destroyed, and his only aides in rescuing his family and people are the visiting King Rinkitink from the kingdom of the same name, Rinkitink's surly talking goat Bilbil, and the three magic pearls, which King Kitticut had only recently revealed to his son. Inga, Rinkitink, and Bilbil make it to the twin islands of Regos and Coregos, which they eventually conquer, but King Gos and Queen Cor flee with Inga's parents to the Nome Kingdom, where the Nome King promises to hold the King and Queen of Pingaree. In the published book, Dorothy discovers what's going on and swoops in to save everyone with a basket of eggs, which is not a terribly satisfying conclusion, and Inga doesn't get to save his parents at all. I've often said that my favorite Oz book is the first eighty percent of Rinkitink in Oz, because it just kind of falls apart when the old familiar Oz characters are introduced. Oz fans have long wanted to know how the story originally ended, but no manuscript has ever been found.

Enter the International Wizard of Oz Club and the Royal Publishers of Oz! They collaborated on a contest to complete King Rinkitink! They chalenged writers to take over the book from a new chapter 20 (where Oz characters first appear in the published version) and write a new ending. King Rinkitink, as a standalone book, was finally published in 2017, with a new prize-winning ending by Andrew J. Heller and new illustrations by Javi Laparra. I'm not sure this is exactly how Baum might have ended the book, but it is at least a satisfying conclusion, and it comes about through the efforts of Inga and Rinkitink, not someone else swooping in and taking over. The one change made to the earlier part of the book is that the name of the Nome King is changed from Kaliko to Roquat. That makes sense, as Roquat would have been the king in 1905. (He ended up changing his name to Ruggedo, but he was deposed and replaced by Kaliko in Tik-Tok of Oz. Despite the name, he is quite clearly Roquat in Rinkitink in Oz. In fact, the Nomes as they first appeared in the Oz books probably originated in King Rinkitink.) There were some references to Oz that, while I was reading it, I was surprised were left in, until I got to Helller's conclusion. Although nobody goes to Oz, nor do any characters from Oz appear, it's clear that this version of King Rinkitink takes place between Ozma of Oz and The Emerald City of Oz, as the NOme King has already had his first encounter with Ozma and Dorothy.

Heller does bring Inga's adventure to a satisfactory conclusion, but it does get a little silly at the end when we find out the final fate of Rinkitink (much as Baum wrote it in Rinkitink in Oz) and Bilbil. Things start to spiral out of control for a bit. However, the characters recognize this and comment on it.

Okay, that's it for now. Like I said, I will tell you why I needed to write this up very soon. And I hope to have some entries about other things I've read soon as well.

The Latest Oz Reading

Yes, I'm still reading Oz stuff. No, I haven't had a chance to write them up much here. But now I'm on winter break, so I'm going to do my best to catch up before I have to go back to work. They're going to be all over the place, from both this most recent wave and the last one. There will be old and new books, magazines and comics, and maybe a few other surprises. It's going to get kind of random!

• 'aS 'IDnar pIn'a' Dun qon L. Frank Baum, mugh DeSDu'. When I finished the Klingon tree on Duolingo, I rewarded myself with this book. Yes, it is indeed a translation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz into Klingon. Unfortuanetly my Klingon is still weak, and I can't read it well, but I do understand the sentence structure and at least some of the vocabulary. But this is going to truly be a long-term project to completely understand this one. I wish it had illustrations, and perhaps a glossary of new words created or discovered for this book, but I'm not at all unhappy having this.
• Father Goose: His Book by L. Frank Baum, illustrated by W. W. Denslow. I have a very early edition of this book, but it's over one hundred and twenty years old now, so I'd rather not handle it more than I have to. This reprint edition is terrific if I just want to read or browse these poems. It's smaller than the original, but Denslow's art still reproduces well. In fact, publisher Marcus Mébès did some light restoration where the original publication was just misaligned enough to detract. He also didn't touch a word, even though many of the depictions of peoples that were considered amusing in 1899 fall very flat today. It is a nice way to get this book. It is only lacking a learned essay about the book's background and development and its influence on the careers of both Baum and Denslaw, but that may have to wait for another edition.
• Another rare piece of Baumiana also available from Mébès and Lulu is L. Frank Baum's Juvenile Speaker, which features excerpts and extracts from many of Baum's works suitable for recitation, which is a thing people did back in the day. Although this was originally published by Reilly and Britton, permission was granted by Bobbs-Merrill and the Century Company to include works that they then controled, so this book includes Reilly and Britton's first ever publication of any material from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The star of the book may be the finale, "Prince Marvel: A Playlet for Children" which was original to this volume, and is a highly simplified dramatization of The Enchanted Island of Yew. It's a fun collection of Baum's works, and includes an afterword by Michael W. De Jesus. It's one of the rarest Baum titles today, so I greatly appreciate having access to the material here.
• Greensleeves by Eloise Jarvis McGraw. This reread has been a long time in coming, as I hadn't read it since college, way back in the '80s. When I discovered the juvenile literature section of my college library, one of the first itemsI found was The Phoenixand the Capret by E. Nesbit, which I had started in third grade but didn't finish then. Then I hunted down the books by Eloise. I had probably only recently read Merry Go Round in Oz, but I at least had The Forbidden Fountain of Oz, so although I knew her Oz books, this was my first exposure to the rest of her works. Later, a beat up old library copy was one of the first items I ever purchased from Amazon, but I have never read that copy because this is a new reprint, thanks to legendary Seattle librarian Nancy Pearl including it in her Book Crush Rediscovery series. Upon rereading this, I remembered bits and pieces, but for the most part this was practically a new book for me. Shannon Lightley, the daughter of an international film star and a renowned director, has just graduated from high school in rural Oregon where, as just about everywhere else she's ever lived, she never really fit in. She doesn't know what to do next, but a family friend, a probate lawyer in Portland, needs someone to investigate a strange will, and Shannon reinvents hersolf as Georgetta Smith, rents a room at a boarding house, takes a waitressing job in the diner across the street, and spends the summer getting to know the locals. In the process, she also learns more about herself, falls in love (maybe), learns more about the eccentric deceased, and touches the lives of all around her as they do the same for her. It's a great little slice-of-life story, although it is definitely set in a smaller, 1960s version of Portland. Shannon is a fascinating character, and we see a lot of changes in her through the course of her summer. I'm glad I finally got to reread it.
• I still have a lot of Eloise's books to reread, but I also have a lot of books by Rachel Cosgrove Payes to read for the first time. My latest was the only book she wrote under a pen name that wasn't a science fiction novel by "E. L. Arch". This was part five of a romance series by "Joanne Kaye", set in the New York fashion world. (Kaye was a house name, and it's entirely possible that the other books in the series were all written by different authors.) According to some collectors of Rachel's work, this is one of the hardest of her titles to track down, so when I saw a copy for sale I snatched it up. Our heroine, Suzanna Blake, is looking to expand into sports fashion, and heads to Paris to mingle and possibly find a tennis player to work with at the French Open. She becomes enmeshed with the affairs of Ginny Norris, a young prodigy who is under the thumb of her stepfather/manager. Ginny is secretly engaged, and when one of New York's most notorious tabloid gossips gets wind of this, Ginny finds she needs Suzanna as an ally. It's all pretty standard potboiler/romance stuff, and of the many romances I've read written by Rachel, this has the steamiest, most graphic descriptions of carnal acts. Between Oz, science fiction, and this, I can certainly attest to Rachel being a versatile writer! It's harmless fun, but a lot of the attitudes in this book have changed in forty years, and since Ginny is only sixteen, some of it definitely made me cringe. The characters' attitudes towards lesbians wouldn't fly these days, either.

And that's it for now, but I suspect thre will be a lot more in tte coming days.

The Latest Oz Reading

At last, something that's not a comic! Yeah, I've been busy, and I have a huge backlog of just stuff I need to take care of in the coming weeks and months. How big is the backlog? I have a whole bunch of books and other items I read in my last round of Oz reading, last winter, that I haven't blogged about yet. And now I've started the latest round. I'll go back and hit some of those in the coming weeks, but right now I want to start with what I started off this round with:

• In my attempts to reread all of L. Frank Baum's Oz books, I realized I missed one a few books back. Despite his success as an author, L. Frank Baum still wanted a career in show business, and the success of the 1902 musical version of The Wizard of Oz only whetted his appetite. Shortly after the publication of The Patchwork Girl of Oz, Baum put together a treatment and scenario for a stage adaptation. It didn't get very far, and was eventually adapted to become the 1914 silent film version. Only one copy of the original treatment is known to exist, but Michael O. Riley turned it into a gorgeus little hand-bound book in his Pamami Press series. Since I've gotten all the other ones, I had to get this one as well, and Michael kindly let me buy it in installments. Baum clearly learned his lesson from previous theatrical adaptations, as this is not the book, but streamlined, with a few other characters to appeal to different audiences. The parts that become Jesseva and Danx in the movie are Jellia Jamb (!) and Pugly Muffins, and a few extra characters are thrown in for comic effect, but it follows the general arc of the story. One new character, the Scorner, is probably the genesis of Pessim, who happens to appear in the next book I read.
• After The Sea Fairies and Sky Island in my previous rounds of reading, naturally I was going to tackle The Scorecrow of Oz next (which, coincidentally was the reverse of The Patchwork Girl of Oz, in that it was based on a silent movie; The Scarecrow of Oz is considered to be one of the earliest novelizations of a movie). There's not a lot I can leally say about this, it's still a fun romp that brings Trot, Cap'n Bill, and Button Bright to Oz for good (although there's still the lingering question of Trot's parents).

That's all for now, but there are going to be a lot more reading recaps in the next few days, I hope.

The Latest Reading, Part II

Let's see if I can hit the bottom of this pile today. If not, however, I have a few more days this week.

• Fables, Volume 15: Rose Red by Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham, and other guests artists, colorists, and letterers is, as you can probably guess, the next volume in the Fables comic series. Rose Red is still dealing with her depression after the loss of Boy Blue, but she is forced out of it as more and more Free Fables emigrate to the Farm as Mr. Dark takes a firmer grip on Fabletown in New York City. And a new leader emerges among the witches—Ozma! Yes, we've seen her before, but this is when Ozma truly comes into her own as a character in this series and becomes a formidable force. Also, Snow White and Bigby have to deal with their cubs and their ancestry, while Beauty and the Beast have offspring troubles of their own; they just don't kwon it yet. Thumbelina also gets a story of her own, and the creators answer some reader questions, including one about Bufkin! And this is going to be the last volume of Fables I will be writing about here, as I started collecting individual issues with the next one that comes after this volume, #101. So while I haven't read them all in order, I have now read every issue of the main series in one form or another, along with some of the side issues, miniseries, and the like. At some point, I hope I can do an epic reread of the entire series, but that's a few years off.
• Colorful Corniness in Oz by Marine Elizabeth Xiques and Chris Dulabone. I've been collecting and reading the books published by Dulabone ever since he started, and now that he's passed away I am determined to finish the set. Fortunately, I only have two more to go, but this was a recent acquisition. It's a short one, but wow, they didn't spre on the color! All the illustrations (many are photographs) and even a lot of the text are in full color, fitting this tale of colors and the search for different varieties of corn. Like a lot of books written or published by Dulabone, it may not be particularly memorable, but it is a lot of fun and very Ozzy.
• From the same team comes my next book, Havenly Dreams Beneath Oz, illustrated by Dennis Anfuso. This was a fortunate get for me, as I was comparing my list of books I owned with the website's list of books that had been published, and noticed I'd missed this one. Needless to say, I sent off for it right away. Only a few weeks after the book arrived, word got out about Chris Dulabone's death. Much of this stor involves Goblin Grotto, a land underneath Oz, and the goblins who live there. Our main character is Raspberry Surely, a red goblin who doesn't receive a lot of love from the rest of her family. She sets out to find a better life for herself, something more like what she reads about in the Oz books. Yes, after many adventures, she makes it to Oz, meets some of the celebrities, and returns to a better life with a found family in Goblin Grotto. And that's about all I have to say about this one.
• My one major nod to non-fiction in this reading cycle was Ray Bolger: More Than a Scarecrow by Holly van Leuven. Believe it or not, this is the first full-length biography of Ray Bolger. There had been attempts before, including Bolger's own writings, but van Leuven was the one to finally put it all together and bring it to the public. And she does a fantastic job, making Bolger's life journey from the working class neighborhoods of Boston through the final days of vaudeville, Broadway, movies, night clubs, television, and the showrooms of Las Vegas. While the book certainly covers The Wizard of Oz, that was only one small part of his career, and this book gives equal weight to everything he did, demonstrating his abilities and adaptability. We also see just how important Bolger's wife, Gwen, was to his career, as she sets aside her own ambitions to manage Ray and help him move along to the next level. It's a fascinating look into the complete life of an important figure in the annals of oz, and van Leuven should be concratulated for finally bringing Ray's story out.
• Finally, a book that I recently acquired but don't see the need to actually read, because I know the text so well already: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, illustrated by MinaLima. I already have plenty of editions of this book, so there must be something unique or unusual about it for me to want to get it, but I think this fits the bill very nicely. I've heard it described as a pop-up book, but that doesn't quite fit, although there are some elements. MinaLima, an art and graphic design studio, call it an interactive book, and that's much more accurate. It's the full original novel, but every once in a while something is inserted that invites the reader to play around, such as a pull-out tornado that becomes a map of Oz (including the Gillikin Country, which wasn't mentioned in this book). It's a fun way to present the story. Aside from the interactive element, the illustrations are colorful and striking, and frequently interact with the text (or the text interacts with the illustrations; it's a hard line to define). This is one many of today's children will treasure, and then collectors of the future will try to find it with all the interactive portions intact! So maybe you should buy two, and just not take the second one out of the wrapper.

Yay, I've hit the floor! That is, indeed, all for now. But I have a few other titles I'm working through, so there will likely be an update before too long.

The Latest Oz Short Story

Well if I'm not going to try to do them weekly anymore I may as well not call it a weekly story, right? Actually, I read "Little Dorothy and Toto" from The Little Wizard Stories of Oz last week, meaning to write this earlier, but life got in the way and it didn't quite happen that way. So I think I am totally justified in not making this a weekly series (at least officially) anymore. Now, where was I? Oh, yes, the story! The Wizard expresses concerns about Dorothy and Toto wandering off and having adventures on their own, but they do just that and encounter Krinklink, a bully who can change his size to suit his needs and mood. The furniture in his castle is huge, but his bed is tiny, and he kidnaps Dorothy so that she can wash all of his normal-sized dishes. But if she breaks any, he's going to whip her as many times as there are broken pieces. It all goes well at first, and Doroty is careful not to break any. But there are so many that she eventually drops a whole stackful. Whoops. Toto, however, trying to save his mistress, goes over to the shrunken, sleeping Crilklink and tussles with him. Crinklink then reveals himsel to be—the Wizard in disguise! Yes, in an effort to prove to Dorothy how dangerous it is to wander around Oz all by herself, the Wizard disguises himself, captures Dorothy and puts her in danger. Um, what? No wonder Dorothy is so mad at him at the end of this story! But she also knows that she will forgive him…eventually…

This Week's Oz Short Story

Yeah, the moment I say I'm not going to do these on a regular weekly basis again for a while, I get the chance to read one! But it occurred to me that if I'm going to reread all of the Famous Forty—which I am—then I ought to include The Little Wizard Stories of Oz by L. Frank Baum in there. Since I recently wrapped up The Patchwork Girl of Oz in my reading, this seemed like a good time to also put Little Wizard Stories on my nightstand and delve into that when the opportunity arises. I started off with "The Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger", and this is just comedy gold. Our titular beasts, tired of not being taken seriously, decide to go out into the Emerald City and, respectively, tear a person into sixty pieces and eat a fat baby, then run away to the forest. Of course when they come upon a lost, crying fat baby, the Hungry Tiger picks him up and comforts him while the Lion eggs him on to eat him. The Tiger is aghast! How could he do that to a lost, crying child? When the child's mother comes along to save her baby, but trips and injures herself, this time it is the Cowardly Lion who comforts the unfortunate victim while the Tiger urges him to tear her to pieces. But the Lion and Tiger escort them both home, make sure they are comfortable and cared for, and go off realizing that they are probably never going to be more fierce than their reputations. The Hungry Tiger continues to speculate as to how fat babies will taste, however.

The volume gets off to a fun start with this tale. The two animals are clearly, from the start, all bluster and no bite, and so it comes as no surprise when they do the right thing. Their continuous banter about what fat babies will taste like and how many pieces one should tear someone into just adds to the absurdity of it all.

The Latest Oz Reading

It has been a lot longer than I realized since I last read The Patchwork Girl of Oz, for although I remember most of it from my numerous childhood readings, there are a few things that stood out now that didn't before, at least not in the same way. The big one is the name of the fluid that causes Ojo to head off on his quest in the first place. For decades, I thought it was the Liquid of Petrification. But a talk about the 1914 film version at the Winkie Convention in San Diego a few years ago made me realize I may have misread the word this entire time. So while I continued my rereading of the Famous Forty, I paid extra attention here. Sure enough, every time it comes up, it's the Liquid of Petrifaction! D'oh! Still, I know now.

The other big thing that struck me this time around is that the Horners mine and use radium. I'm not sure of the exact timeline, but I know that nobody knew anything about just how dangerous radium was at that time, which is why so many of young women who used to paint glow-in-the-dark watch faces would come down with mysterious cases of cancer well into the 1920s. Yet here are the Horners mining it, decorating their houses with it, and even consuming it as medicine! Why aren't the Horners all keeling over from radiation poisoning? Or maybe the Horners have horns on their foreheads and pink, blue, and green hail because they are mutants. (Hmm, come to think of it, that may also explain the Hoppers and their singular legs as well!) This is my Books of Wonder/William Morrow edition—yes, the one with the altered text and deleted illustration—so I can't help wondering if it might have been a good idea to alse change the radium in this book to some other material. (The magical element gaulau that Baum created for Glinda of Oz might be a good candidate; ironically, in that book, gaulau is said to be more powerful than radium!)

As a bonus read, I also read Baum's treatment for a possible stage verision of The Patchwork Girl of Oz, written not long after the book. Only one was known to exist until it was reprinted by the Pamami Press, but since they do extremely limited edition handcrafted books, it's still something most people don't have access to or have read. Baum the old theater hand can clearly be seen in this, but you can also see the germ of how it would eventually turn out, as the first feature-length Oz movie a year later.

The Oz readings may be scarce and spread out a bit here, as I recently received some magazines I want to catch up on, but never fear, there will be more at some point!

The Latest Oz Reading

In my efforts to reread the main core Oz books, after finishing The Emerald City of Oz last time I had a dilemma. Do I continue with the next major fantasy novel Baum wrote, since it later dovetails into Oz? Or go to the next Oz book? Then it hit me: There were two non-Oz books up next. There were two Oz books before the two series merge. So, why not read both? So yes, this time around I'm reading both The Sea Fairies and The Patchwork Girl of Oz, next time it will be Sky Island and Tik-Tok of Oz, and the two series will meet down the road at The Scarecrow of Oz. (This has also got me thinking that I should also throw in Baum's non-Oz books into my reading mix, which I may just do.) Anyway, to finally get to the book, The Sea Fairies is, as I'm sure you know, the story of Mayre "Trot" Griffiths, the daughter of a California sea captain, and her boon companion, retired peg-legged sailor Cap'n Bill Wheedles. Cap'n Bill expresses disbelief in the mermaids, seeing as how nobody who has encountered one has lived to tell the tale, so the mermaids overhear this and invite them underwater for a visit. The mermaids give them mermaid tails and use some othre magic to allow them to exist underwater, and then they're off! The first half is just a travelogue, with Trot and Cap'n Bill seeing the sites. There's so much to see, however, and it's all so new to not only them but also the reader that most people don't really notice, or care. In the second half, however, when they are captured by the terrible Zog, that's when things get interesting. Zog has created a whole underwater kingdom, unknown to the mermaids and King Anko, so while the book takes time to explore that as well, we also get a battle of wits and magic between Zog and Queen Aquareine. Cap'n Bill uses his savvy to help tip the odds in his friends' favor, but it proves to be all for naught. Only the timely deus ex machina intervention of King Anko saves the day, but I'm not sure how else this adventure could have ended.

This first adventure with Trot and Cap'n Bill is interesting, if not always exciting. And Zog may be one of the most frightening and powerful villains Baum has ever created. What took me out of this as an adult reader is how much we have learned about the ocean in the more than a century since this was published. Even though they are in some of the deepest parts of the Pacific Ocean, for instance, they get a regular cycle of sunlight and darkness. But we now know just how quickly the oceans become dark, and there's no way they would have natural sunlight down there. I'm sure Baum also created a lot of the sealife Trot and Cap'n Bill encounter, but if he could have incorporated some of the creatures and phenomena discovered in the last century, that might make for a pretty amazing book, too. But all in all, it was fun visiting this book again.

The Latest Oz Reading

And at last, I've come to my next cycle of Oz reading, just in time for the holidays. And oh, this is going to be an interesting run!

• Father Goose's Year Book by L. Frank Baum. Yeah, finding this was a fluke. It's neither a particularly common book to find, nor a terribly desirable one. But I was idly surfing one day, did a search for it, and found one at an extremely attractive price. So I snatched it up. As a Baum book, this is great to have. As the last gasp of his Father Goose franchise, however, it's no great shakes. Illustrator Walter J. tries, but he's no W. W. Denslow. And this time around, Baum's poetry is a little more wry and topical, reflecting what's happening each month, so they're aimed more at older readers than those in the original Father Goose: His Book. Of course this is book is 113 years old, so a lot of the poems have not aged well, reflecting both old cultural references and outdated attitudes. Still, this is nice to have in my collection, especially considering how few Oz fans probably have it in their own.
• The O. Z. #1 by David Pepose and Ruben Rojas, with Whitney Cogar and DC Hopkins. From one of the oldest items in my collection to the most recent! I was part of the highly successful Kickstarter campaign to get this new comic book off the ground, and so I was certainly happy to see it turn up (still looking for you, The Red Queen of Oz). I was a little skeptical about another "war in Oz" project, but this has some new takes on the trope that gives it a new look. Dorothy Gale is an Iraq veteran and the adopted namesake granddaughter of the Dorothy Gale who first went to Oz. Naturally, she's dealing with PTSD, and a tornado picking up her SUV and taking it to a wartorn Oz doesn't help. Fortunately she lands amongst the rebels, including the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion, fighting against Emperor Scarecrow. They know how to get Dorothy home, but on the way to the wizards who can help her, Dorothy realizes that these people are losing and needs an experienced leader to help them, so she decides to stay in Oz and help them. This comic hit home the big thing a lot of these post-modern Oz adaptations neglect: A strong central protagonist. Having this version of Dorothy at the center just hits home how much a part of The Wizard og Oz Dorothy is in that story. Giving this Dorothy some background and strife makes her a rounder, more sympathetic character, and gives the story a sharper focus.

There should be a lot more of these Oz reading updates in the next few weeks. I'm interested to see what all I have myself!

A NEW New Wonderland

I don't normally post items about new books here, as there are just so many of them it's impossible to keep up. (I'm at least a decade behind in buying and reading many of them.) But this one is just too important not to mention here. And you all got a little sneak peek at it during my short story reviews a few months ago, so I feel obligated to tell you about it anyway: The first book L. Frank Baum wrote for children is back in print again after 119 years! Originally entitled Tales from Phunnyland, he wrote it some time before 1896, and based it on some of the stories he would tell his sons and their friends before bedtime. Publishers weren't interested in it at the time, but after the success of Father Goose: His Book, publishers approached Baum, and he dusted off that first book and offered it to R. H. Russell. To make it appeal to buyers who would have also bought Alice in Wonderlnad, they changed the title to A New Wonderland, and commissioned Frank Ver Beck to illustrate it. It apparently didn't do terribly well, as there was only one edition. A few years later, when Bobbs-Merrill became Baum's primary publisher, they changed the name of the country and reprinted the book as The Magical Monarch of Mo, which was available for nearly forty years. The short life and small number of copies of A New Wonderland made it an expensive book for collectors to find, but now it is much easier to at least see what it is all about, thanks to this new edition published by From Alice to Oz, Ltd. All of the color illustrations are in there, in the proper places (unlike the Dover edition of The Magical Monarch of Mo, which has all the color plates as a single gathering in the middle), and it is a solid, well put-together book. The price may seem a little steep for what you get, but it's about one fiftieth of the price you'd pay for a first edition, so if you want this book. this is your best bet. But if the current price is still a little steep for you, keep your eye on that link, because W. Neal Thompson, the man responsible for this reprint, is also looking into paperback and grayscale editions that would not cost so much.

Oz in Jeopardy!

The 2017 Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions kicked off in a big way on the November 6, 2017 episode with three previous multiple winners facing off. And sure enough, Oz showed up, too. In the Double Jeopardy! round, the $800 clue in the category Writers Who Self-Published was this:

Buzzy, a nine-time champion, rang in first and correctly responded, "Who is Baum?" (mispronouncing the middle vowel sound as "ow"—Alex corrected it when he confirmed it was "L. Frank Baum", sounding like "bomb"). This was the only Oz clue in the entire tournament, so it's fitting that Buzzy not only won the game, he went on to win the entire tournament!

And in case you're wondering, the book in question is The Art of Decorating Dry Goods Windows and Interiors, a collection of much of Baum's work in the professional journal he edited, The Show Window. This is a book that's on my bucket list of Oz items to get, but somehow I doubt I'll ever actually be able to afford one unless someone puts out a reprint edition.

The Latest Oz Readings

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.

I'm working on another book now, and there's one more in the pipeline, so there will be one or two more of these reports before I move on to other things.

The Latest Oz Reading

My reread of the main Oz books continues with Ozma of Oz, the third book in the series but the first in which Baum knew it was a series, and would continue with at least two more books (if Baum only know…). Dorothy is back, the Cowardly Lion returns, and some of the most beloved characters in the series are introduced. There's a good reason Oz fans often vote this one to be the best in the series, as there is a lot of drama and suspense, and may be one of the most tightly-plotted books Baum ever wrote for the series. I'm trying to read the books this time around with an eye to finding something new, but there isn't much I haven't seen before here. I did notice a few instances of multisyllabic words spoken by Tiktok (as his name is spelled in this book) that aren't broken up, and a few instances of missing or extraneous quotation marks, a phenomenon that just got worse in later books, particularly the Thompson era. But honestly, I was mostly enjoying myself, because it is so good. Ozma of Oz is the first novel I ever remember reading at one sitting (and that was after also immediately finishing The Land of Oz), so there must have been something to this whole Oz and reading thing even way back then.

There is one curious thing I found: At one point, the Nome King tries to enchant the Sawhorse, only to be reminded by his chamberlain (not named Kaliko yet, I will add) that his magic doesn't work on wood. But since Dorothy was able to use the Magic Belt on the Sawhorse in The Lost Princess of Oz, I thought that maybe Roquat was trying to use innate Nome Magic, and not the Belt. But no, the Nome King specifically asks why "my magic belt" didn't work on wood. This not only raises the question about how it worked in Lost Princess, but also the origin of the Magic Belt itself. If the Belt was made with Nome magic, then why didn't Roquat just make another one after it was taken from him in this book? Why go to all that effort to conquer Oz and steal it back so many times? I think someone needs to do some definitive research on the Magic Belt and determine its origins!

Oz in Jeopardy!

Our final post on this topic for 2016 comes from the December 22 show, which didn't have a lot of Oz stuff going for it—until Final Jeopardy! Right before the final commercial break, Alex revealed the category to be:

Promising, but not definitive. Then the clue was revealed: As this was a video clue, after a few seconds of reading, this image was also revealed: While playing the famous Jeopardy! "Think" music, both the clue and the picture were displayed on screen. (Presumably, the contestants could see both at all times.) Alex then added, "The White City was an inspiration for another famous city, though not a white one." Then came the reveals. In third place, challenger Amelia, at the center lectern, gave this response: As Lewis Carroll was not the correct answer, she lost the $6200 she had wagered, ending up with a final score of $0. Next up, Brad, the other challenger, on the right, gave this response: Carl Sandberg was also incorrect, and he lost the $7800 he had wagered, making his final score also $0. Finally, the response of Sam, the returning champion, was revealed: Alex helpfully added, "L. Frank Baum, who wrote about the Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz." Sam gained his wager of $7801, giving him the win and a final score of $16,801.

And that's all the episodes I have for now. I will see what I can do about getting the rest of this season's episodes up as soon as I can, but if there is a few days' break, be patient.

The Latest Oz Reading

Yes, it's that time again, to delve into the Ever-growing-but-not-fast-enough pile of Oz and Oz-related books, read some of them, and tell yau what I think of them.

• I'm starting off with my reread of the FF+, but this one is tricky because what comes after The Marvelous Land of Oz? No, not Ozma of Oz, but the earliest Oz comics. But how to read them? I didn't want to read Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz: The Complete Comic Strip Saga 1904-1905 because that thing is huge and bulky to read. Fortunately, I had a more reasonably sized alternative in The Visitors from Oz from Hungry Tiger Press, which is the complete texts of not only the comic page, but The Woggle-Bug Book as well. For those not already familiar with this series, they transcribe the adventures of the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, the Wogglebug, Jack Pumpkinhead, the Sawhorse, and the Gump in a strange and far-off land called America. These are really very short stories, and in some cases the visitors from Oz barely appear. But a consistent throughline is how amazing they find America and its accomplishments, nicely dovetailing with Baum's views of American progress. Looking at what we can now accomplish with computers, digital technology, and other more recent innovations, I don't disagree. This despite the fact that our friends can do magic, something they can't do in the regular Oz books. I also found all kinds of other inconsistencies with the (later) Oz books, which leads me to think that Baum didn't see these stories as part of the Oz series. Some time, I'd like to go through and put together a detailed explanation of why these adventures don't fit. Maybe I'll go back and reread these individually as part of my short story readings once I'm done with Oziana (but as I still have over forty years worth of that to go, it may take a while). The Woggle-Bug Book rounds out the collection, and it does not hold up well at all. The story of the Wogglebug falling in love with a Wagnerian checked dress is, frankly, pretty slight, and as he follows it from one owner to the next, Baum gets to trot out a tired tirade of ethnic stereotypes that were probably not even that funny over a hundred years ago, but now are extremely offensive. Things look up a bit when he gets to a jungle of civilized animals (shades of Prince Zingle and the monkeys in The Magical Monarch of Mo), but by then it's pretty much too late to save things. The whole thing ends with the Wogglebug making it bark to America, but we never see him reunite with his friends, let alone all of them returning to Oz.
• I figure if I were going to read Baum's comic page, I may as well also read W. W. Denslow's comic page of the same era, also about the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion having adventures in America and the Caribbean. So I also grabbed my copy of The Scarecrow and Tin-Man of Oz, also collected in convenient-to-read book size, even though they are also reproduced in the big book. Denslow's style is much gentler and based more on the situations the characters find themselves in, rather than situations others often put them in as happened with Baum. Things sort of morph from the characters being from Oz to the characters being from the then-running stage show, so it makes sense that the final part of this volume would be the text of the picture book Denslow's Scarecrow and the Tin Man, recounting their adventures when they decided to take an afternoon off and leave the theater.
• The final book in the current reading was The Visitors from Oz, ironically the first book to be published under that name. This came out in 1960, not long after the original "Queer Visitors" comic was rediscovered by Oz scholar and artist Dick Martin in a Chicago newspaper archive. He thought there was potential for a book, Reilly and Lee agreed, and so this book came about. About a dozen of the stories were rewritten and updated a bit (although I was surprised at how much of Baum's original text actually remained), and the order was rejigged so everything hung together better. The visitors first arrive at an amusement park in New York, where they are directed to Kansas in the hopes of finding Dorothy in time for her birthday. They keep getting turned around and going in the wrong direction, which means having to get out and figure out where they are (and having a new adventure each time as a result). But of course they make it to Dorothy's farm just in time, and help her celebrate. The Wogglebug even adds Aunt Em's cake recipe to his book of spells. The final story sees the Gump racing Santa and his reindeer as they're headed back to Oz. I really like this book, the story is charming and does a nice job of adapting the originals while putting it all together in a more timeless format. Martin's painted illustrations are charming, and he drops in a few sly Easter eggs for Oz fans to discover.
• Finally, although not part of the regular Oz reading cycle, I also read this year's edition of Dunkiton Press, the twenty-fifth (!) consecutive year that editor Ruth Berman has put out a collection of rarely seen newspaper stories by Ruth Plumly Thompson and other Oz notables. This year the subject is "The Perhappsy Chaps" #5. This year those friendly little fellows help out with a town full of mice, an unhappy old man, a student who doesn't like to do math, a boy being raised to not have any fun, and a farmer unable to bring in his crops. Another charming collection. I can't help but think that someone needs to compile the definitive book of all of the Perhappsy Chaps stories into one volume.

That's it for now, but I'm sure I'll have more later.

The Latest Oz Reading

Yes! At last! A post that isn't about a new comic strip! I am slowly getting out from under a pile of all kinds of stuff and catching up on others, such as my reading. I have a number of Oz and Oz-related books I've recently reread, so here are a few quick overviews:

• Rinkitink in Oz by L. Frank Baum. Yeah, this was not supposed to be the next volume of my reread of the entire Famous Forty (and related books). But with the book being the main theme of this year's OzCon International, and me scheduled to give a keynote speech on it, I figured I'd better jump ahead and tackle that. Since the original non-Oz version of the story was written around 1905, not long after The Marvelous Land of Oz, I figured I was justified anyway. I have always felt Rinkitink is an undersung Oz book, because it is one of Baum's most tightly plotted books, at least for nineteen chapters, and the development of the three main characters over the course of the book is a great added layer. I really enjoyed reading this again, and I found all kinds of extra bits that I'd never noticed before (or at least don't remember).
• The Curious Cruise of Captain Santa by Ruth Plumly Thompson. Another of our theme books, and one I needed to read for a panel. This is a fun little romp about Santa Claus sailing around the ocean finding new toys. It was aimed at younger readers than the Oz books, and it shows. Heck, it took me only an hour to read. It ended with the hint that there may be more adventures, and it's too bad she never wrote them.
• Captain Salt in Oz by Ruth Plumly Thompson. Okay, no justification for reading this one out of order, except it was yet another theme book at the convention, and the other book that went with The Curious Cruise of Captain Santa on one panel. Like the previous book, this is basically an excuse to write about a trip at sea. Captain Samuel Salt, King Ato, and Roger the Read Bird (last seen in Pirates in Oz) are off to find new islands to become part of Oz. (Yeah, at one point Ozma apparently had dreams of empire. Some have said it was just an excuse to get Sammy out of Oz and Ozma's hair!) It's a pretty straightforward, episodic tale, but the throughline is Tazander Tazah, the young king of Ozamaland who was kidnapped, and found on one of the islands. He is suffering from, as Ato put it, "ingrowing Royalitis", acting high and mighty and treating his rescuers as his servants. It is Roger who is the main one to gently tamp that down and bring out his true nature, but Sammy and Ato also help to truly integrate him into the crew. Tandy's growth and development is not something seen in a lot of Thompson's books, and it gives Captain Salt in Oz a lot more depth than should be expected. This is one book I haven't read as much as some of the others, but I am certainly glad I got the chance to read it this time. (And it's far enough back in the series, by the time I get to it in the proper order, I will likely read it again!)
• Toto in Oz by Chris Dulabone. This is the twentieth anniversary edition of the first book Dulabone published, way back when his imprint was Buckethead Enterprises of Oz. I've been supporting Chris and his books from the very beginning, so it was a lot of fun to revisit this one again after so long. Fortunately, this edition has much better typesetting (if you've ever seen the first edition of this book, you'll completely understand why this is a good thing). Toto, not feeling appreciated and having no title, runs away from the Emerald City and, through a few misadventures, ends up as the leader of the small kingdom of Arfrica. He tries to do a good job and bring about reform, but he also finds it isn't as easy as it looks. Of course Dorothy ends up looking for him too. It all comes to a satisfying, if somewhat rushed, ending.
• And finally (for now), Visitors from Oz by Martin Gardner. I got interested in rereading this while reading A Bouquet for the Gardener on my last wave of reading. This is Gardner's only Oz novel, and it is certainly far from the best. But it is a lot of fun, particularly if you know about Martin Gardner, his place in Oz fandom, and his other interests. It acts as two books, with the first part being a typical journey by Dorothy, the Scarecrow, and the Tin Woodman through Oz. Along the way, they meet up with the Greek gods, take a side trip through Wonderland, and deal with a detective bear and a giant. But it's the second half where things get real different. The three of them have been requested to visit America by a movie mogul and Oz fan making a musical film version of The Emerald City of Oz, so that they can drum up interest and publicity. Naturally, the rival studio boss doesn't like it much, and uses nefarious means to deal with the Oz people. Of course, magic gets involved and things all turn out well in the end. Having Dorothy and friends in New York City is a different setting for an Oz book, and Gardner has some fun with it. From this author, one would also expect some mathematics, so naturally a Klein bottle is used to travel between Oz and Central Park. It is a fun little romp of a book, and I'm glad that Gardner was finally able to fulfill that old Oz fan saying, "Scratch an Oz fan, find an Oz book."

Okay, that's all the recent rereads. Soon, I hope to report on some stuff I've read for the very first time!

The Latest Oz Short Story

With today's reading of "The Enchanted Buffalo", I have come to the end at last of The Purple Dragon and Other Fantasies by L. Frank Baum, a book I've waited nearly forty years to own. And it may have ended with the finest story in the book, as "The Enchanted Buffalo" is a very well told tale of power and rank and privilege, the price some people are willing to pay for them, and the true costs. The king of the Okolom tribe of buffaloes — the largest and noblest tribe on the prairies — has lost its king, and the arrogant Barrag uses magic to become the new king. He fails to account for Oknu, the old king's son, however, and the tribe decides that they will acknowledge Barrag for now, until Oknu is big enough to challenge him. But Barrag enters into a bargain that proves to be his downfall.

It's not that I hadn't read any of these stories before. In fact, I've read some of them many times before. But having them in this handsome volume, with insights from editor David L. Greene and new illustrations by Tim Kirk, is good to have.

I had originally planned to take some time out of my short story reading, so that I can concentrate on other things for a bit. But an opportunity came up, and I decided to start up a big project I've been thinking of while continuing my short story reading with&ellips; But no, that can wait until next week!