The Latest Reading

My reread of the works of Eloise Jarvis McGraw continues!

• A Really Weird Summer is, well, weird, and Eloise's firsht brush with the supernatural. Nels' parents are getting a divorce and both working far away for the summer, so the kids are shuffled off to an aunt's place in rural eastern Oregon that used to be an inn. It's weird enough dealing with not having either parent, and dealing with their aunt and uncle's quirky ways, but when Nels spots a mysterious figure in a mirror, it just gets weirder. Alan befriends Nels and gives him something to focus on for the summer, but before long he realizes that there's something weird about Alan. How come Alan can't leave his rooms in the inn? Why does he never see Alan's mother, or any evidence of his father? But it takes Nels' brother, Stevie, to figure out that something is seriously wrong with Nels, and Stevie decides it's up to him to do something about it. Eloise has a great sense of knowing what's important in a kid's world, and uses that knowledge to give her stories depth and heft — three-dimensionality, as the late Warren Hollister put it. The weird stuff is never explicitly stated or explained, which just adds to the weirdness, but it is definitely there, adding a layer to at least Nels' experiences in the book. Although not the kind of book that usually has pictures, Eloise also contributed two drawings of the inn, before and after Nels' experineces, just to show how weird things are. Even though I doubt you could call this a mystery, I can see why the Mystery Writers of America gave its Edgar Award for Best Juvenile to this book.
• Normally I only read one of Eloise's books at a time, but I know that Joel and the Great Merlini, her only book for very young readers, would be a quick read, so I added it. Joel loves doing magic tricks, but is frustrated that he can't always get them right, even with practice. So he wishes on the evening star, and the Great Merlini is there to help him out. Only trouble is, Merlini's idea of magic doesn't jibe with Joel's. Merlini practically takes over Joel's act and has Joel performing real magic, like pulling a St. Bernard out af a hat! At first, though, Joel doesn't mind, and he's a smash at the school's talent night. But Merlini's tricks are so good that Joel is suddenly doing shows several nights a week, and his schoolwork is suffering. Not only that, he becomes more and more uneasy that Merlini's doing most of the work. This leads Joel to have to make some very tough decisions, and dealing with Merlini. It's a fun little romp about integrity and persistence without getting preachy. Joel is definitely a good kid, even if it takes him a while to figure out the right thing to do.

The Latest Oz Reading

Yup, catching up on some more Oz and Oz-adjacent reading I've done lately (for certain nebulous definitions of the word "lately"):

• "Heart of Tin", the first novella in Dorothy Must Die Stories Volume 2 by Danielle Paige. Yeah, besides the main Dorothy Must Die series, Paige wrote a bunch of interrelated novellas, each from the viewpoint of a different character. As you can probably guess from the title, this one is about the Tin Woodman. It seems the heart the Wizard gave him worked a little too well, as he decides that he has fallen in love with Dorothy, and is sad that he'll probably never see her again. You can imagine his delight when she comes back to Oz, but he's confused and disappointed when she doesn't return that love. But his feelings become even more befuddled when Dorothy and Glinda use him and his love for Dorothy to carry out their agenda, and turn Tin into something even he doesn't understand. All I'm going to say about this one is, I think I'm going to need a complete Dorothy Must Die timeline once I finish the final novella (and there are five more to go)!
• The Silver Shoes of Oz by Marin Elizabeth Xiques. This is both a reread and a new book, as this was originally published by Tails of the Cowardly Lion and Friends oer thirty years ago, and became one of their most requested reprints once it went out of print. Not long before he died, publisher Chris Dulabone finally put out a new, print-on-demand edition, which is what I read recently, even though I also have the first edition. Coming back across the Deadly Desert from a diplomatic mission to Foxville and Dunkiton, Ozma finds the long-missing Silver Shoes and brings them back to the Emerald City. Betsy Bobbin wants to investigate all the powers of the shoes, so she is allowed to take them out on an adventure with Scraps to test them out. Together, Betsy and Scraps find new Ozian villages, find out more about the shoes, and foil yet another attempt to conquer Oz. It's fun, if not particularly earth-shattering. The illustrations are by the late Chris Sterling, and I forgot just how good of an Oz illustrator he was.
• Death Sleeps Lightly by Rachel C. Payes, the writer first published as Rachel C. Cosgrove. Yes, I'm still trying to acquire all the works of this Royal Historian, and this is one of her earliest after her foray into Oz. It's a murder mystery, in which young secretary Jill Haynes takes up a position on an isolated island assisting Mrs. Weber. Soon after she starts the job, Mrs. Weber dies under mysterious circumstances. Naturally murder is suspected, and as the most recent arrival to the household Jill is about the only one not suspected of the crime. Her curious nature leads to her snooping around and uncovering all kinds of clues, which eventually leads to the killer's identity. It's not a groundbreaking example of the genre, but Rachel plays the cards well and keeps everyone on their toes. She even throws in a little romance with Jill's attraction to the dashing chauffeur.
• The Umbrellaphant in Oz by Carol P. Silva and Marin Elizabeth Xiques. Another latter-day offering from Tails of the Cowardly Lion and Friends. It's been a little while, and I don't remember much about it. But the star is Umbo, the flying umbrellaphant seen in Captain Salt in Oz, and he ends up saving the animals of the Springbok Forest (visited in many Tails books) from a three-eyed witch. I may have to reread this one sooner than anticipated.
• Pick Your Own Quest: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Connor Hoover. Remember the old Choose Your Own Adventure Books? Yeah, this is in the same vein. You take the role of Dorothy and have to make choices along the way that can veer the story off in all kinds of directions you never anticipated. You may end up going home alone, or with one of your new Ozian friends. You may help an army of Scarecrows overrun the Emerald City. You may end up living in Oz, or stranded on a desert island. This was a lot of fun, and some of the storylines were very imaginative. But at only 135 pages and over thirty different endings, they tended to go very quickly! I'd love to see someone try to tackle a bigger, richer version of this, with more to do and even more ways to explore Oz.
• Green by Alex Gino. I got this to take part in Down the Yellow Brick Pod's book club. I got it about a week before the meeting, so I had to put aside another book and tear through it! Fortunately, it's a short enough read that I got it done in plenty of time. Green is a non-binary middle school student with a supportive family and friends. Lately, they've been having odd feelings around another student, Ronnie. Green's not sure if Ronnie, who is definitely a cis male, would be interested in a non-binary person like them. But when the school puts on a less-than-traditional version of The Wizard of Oz, Green and Ronnie are thrown into a lot of work together as they both try to figure out their feelings. This was a fun read, and an eye-opener for this old cis guy. Green is a great kid, but they have to go through all the same angst that all the rest of us have to go through in middle school, and it all feels very raw and authentic to me. Now I want to compile a list of stories that revolve around putting on a stage production of The Wizard of Oz, as I now have at least a half dozen of them in my collection.
• Finally, a book I may never quite get around to reading, but I've wanted to get El Mago de Oz: Edición Anotada for years now, but the few times I ever saw it for sale it was way out of my range. But I recently tried to find it again and discovered Buscalibre not only had it, it was on sale, so I snatched it up. I've been studying and learning Spanish for some time now, and this may be the ultimate test (well, before I try Don Quixote, at least). It's a translation of the 2000 edition of The Annotated Wizard of Oz by Michael Patrick Hearn, but this one is even bigger than that book because the text of The Wizard of Oz is in both the original English and a Spanish translation. This may be one to wait on until I'm retired.

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.

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, another roundup of Oz, Ozzy, Oz-related, and Oz-adjacent books I've read this year:

• The first of two books I've read before, but now have new editions, is Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman by "Edith Van Dyne". In this case, Ms. Van Dyne is not L. Frank Baum, as the book was published in 1922, three years after he died. This is from after Emma Speed Sampson writing the series. This is also the final book by "Edith Van Dyne" for my collection, as I now have all titles published under that name. Back to the book, though, this is badly misnamed, as Mary Louise is barely in it. This is definitely Josie's book, and she is certainly the more interesting character. When Mary Louise offers to turn the mansion she inherited (it's much too large for a young couple, just married) over to the Dorfield Children's Home Society, it sets a whole series of events into motion when a mysterious woman comes to town and presents two children to the society. Their story raises suspicions, and the girls believe they may not be orphans. This puts Josie O'Gorman, Girl Detective, on the trail, and she ends up traveling to Atlanta and Indiana, taking on new identities and occupations to uncover the mystery. Naturally, in the end, the family is reunited and the bad people get their just rewards. But it's no wonder that this was the last book to feature Mary Louise in the title, as Josie is certainly the star.
• The second book I already have an earlier edition of, but it seemed appropriate to get the new, hardcover edition of The Gardener's Boy of Oz by Phyllis ann Karr after having read The Scorecrow of Oz earlier. Pon is now King of Jinxland, but as it's Queen Gloria who actually rus things, he has little to do, and decides to try fishing his father, King Phearce, out of the pond he was buried in. Enlisting the aid of Grewl, the former King Krewl and now the gardener's boy, they succeed, only for the three of them to slip further into the pond and into all kinds of adventures underground, even making their way to the other side of the world and having an audience with Tititi-Hoochoo. Candy Longtaw, meanwhile, is a Native American girl who ends up having adventures of her own, and even coming up with a novel way to cross the Deadly Desert. In the end, everyone meets up and secrets are uncovered, families are reunited, and lots of other stuff happens. It's a big, sprawling book that touches on a lot of other bits of Oz, but Karr also creates a lot of new lore as well. It had been a very long time since I'd last read it, so this was a nice revisit.
• Under the Influence of Oz by Marin Elizabeth Xiques and Chris Dulabone isn't really an Oz book, as it continues the authors' previous adventures in Goblin Grotto, a land underneath Oz inhabited by (naturally) goblins. The inhabitants of Heartbreak Hostel, a home for the homeless, seem to be losing their memories and identities, and hostile forces are moving in to take advantage and turn the hostel into a money-making resort. Of course it all works out in the end, and the Cowardly Lion and Tik-Tok come in towards the end to bring in an Oz element.
• Stairway to Oz by Robin Hess. Ryan is visiting his grandparents in Colorado. Curiosity gets the best of him, and he opens the locked door into the basement, where he finds himself in the Nome Kingdom! Yes, his grandparents' house is the one previously owned by the Shaggy Man's brother. Like Shaggy's brother, Ryan ran into trouble with the Nomes, but he manages to deal with them. But there's been a coup in the Nome Kingdom, and the new King intends to invade Oz! Ryan recruits his grandparents, some Nomes who prefer King Kaliko, and other allies to save the day and rid Oz of the Nomes. I liked the premise of the starway, and that Ryan actually brought adults to Oz with him.
• And finally (for now), The Brides of Maracoor by Gregory Maguire, the first of the "Another Day" trilogy that follows Rain, Elphaba's granddaughter, after the events of Out of Oz. Rain and Iskinaary, the Goose, wash up on the shore of an island inhabited by seven women who have important spiritual duties to perform. Suffering amnesia, Rain's presence upsets the balance of life on the island. Lucikles, the examiner from the mainland, comes for his annual visit, and doesn't know what to do, but decides to let Rain stay there until he can get instructions. He arrives on the mainland in the aftermath of an invasion, and it is some time before he can make his report and receive those instructions. Then things start to get very interesting. Other than Rain—and it even takes a while for her to enter the story—there isn't a lot of Oz in this book, but events at the end indicate that may change as the series progresses. Maguire paints a fascinating portrait of this new part of his world, which is something like ancient Greece but with the efficiency of the Roman or Chinese civil service. He is definitely setting something up, and I'm actually looking forward to seeing what happens next.

And that's all the books I have right now. But there will be more of these reports, as I also have a surprisingly large pile of comic books and graphic novels here.

The Latest Oz Reading

Yup, another roundup of Ozzy things I've read this year.

• Queen Ann in Oz by Karyl Carlson and Eric GJovaag. Yeah, I read my own book. Well it has been a long time now, and I don't think I've ever read it just for the sake of reading it. Every time I've read it, it's with an eye towards publication. But it still stands up well, even if the story structure is a little too linear, some of the characterizations needed a little more fleshing out, and some of the revelations are telegraphed a little too much. I'm still proud of it, though, and I think we did a good job. I also got to enjoy Karyl's follow-up novella, Jodie in Oz, once again. The final chapter of Queen Ann, which brings Jodie Button's quest to an end, was excised from the original publication, so rather than restore it for this new edition, Karyl expanded it into a whole new story, which brough Ozma, Trot, and Cap'n Bill into things. Predating everything else in this book, though, is my own solo contribution, "Another Adventure with Ann", a skit I wrote for the 1988 Winkie Convention. It was all very silly, but we did allude to a few events from it in Queen Ann, so it made a nice bonus, and brought back some fond memories. (But has it really been about thirty-five years now???)
• The second Dorothy Must Die novella, "The Witch Must Burn" by Danielle Paige. This one is told from the point of view of Jellia Jamb, and tells the tale of how Dorothy wormed her way into a leadership role in the Emerald City, and not in a nice way. Jellia also ends up working for Glinda the Good for a while, and that ends up being a harrowing experience as well. In the end, Jellia sees no choice but to join the resistance movement and act as a spy in the palace.
• Book 2 of the Royal Explorers of Oz series, The Crescent Moon Over Tarara by Marcus Mébès, Jared Davis, and Jeff Rester. The ship picks up a few more passengers, most notably Princess Truella of Mo and her Ork escort, as it heads towards Tarara. Tandy is looking forward to seeing his homeland again, but he is surprised to find that he has been away so long that Tarara has moved on with new leadership, and he's been all but forgotten. Nevertheless, the crew is welcomed and sets off to explore the continent. They encounter the flying lizards and creeping birds first mentioned in Captain Salt in Oz, and discover some unpleasant secrets as well, before hitting the seas again, where they meet up with some characters from Ruth Plumly Thompson's non-Oz books before finally preparing for their next adventure, which may take them back to Oz.
• I've also been reading some shorter stuff. The February 12, 2022 issue of Closer magazine has a big "Secrets from the Set!" article about the making of the 1939 film version of The Wizard of Oz, which I suspect was reprinted from an earlier issue.
• I also read the two latest issues of Dunkiton Press, compiled by Ruth Berman. She finds public domain pieces of Ozzy interest in old newspapers and packages them in annual theme issues. The 2021 collection is the second "Yuletide" set, while the just-released 2022 volume is a collection of some of Ruth Plumly Thompson's Perhappsy Chaps stories that haven't been reprinted anywhere else yet. (I can't help but think that there could be a market for a print-on-demand edition of The Complete Perhappsy Chaps.)
• Finally (for now) comes The Art of Oz by Gabriel Gale and John Fricke, a spectacular album of Gale's artistic interpretations of Oz characters. He delves into the anatomy of such characters as the Winged Monkeys, the Hammerheads, the Hoppers, and the Scoodlers in spectacular detail. Gale also creates some contemporaries of Tik-Tok who are powered by means other than clockwork. With Fricke's knowledgeable text putting the art into context, it's a terrific overview of Baum's Oz raised to a new level for the twenty-first century.

I have a few more books to get through this week, so stay tuned for more!

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

And by latest I mean some time in the past year or so. Hey, as I said last time, I may be keeping up with the reading, but not doing so well with telling you about it!

• "No Place Like Oz", the first story in the collection Dorothy Must Die Storise by Danielle Paige. I may have finished off the main line of Dorothy Must Die novels, but Paige also wrote a number of novellas on the periphery of the main series. (How many novellas? Enough that this is only the first of three volumes!) "No Place Like Oz" sees Dorothy, now back in Kansas, wondering what her life may have been like if she'd stayed in Oz. For her sixteenth birthday, she receives a gift of a mysterious red pair of shoes. Sure enough, Glinda sent those shoes, and they transport Dorothy back to Oz, along with Toto, Uncle Henry, anh Aunt Em. But although it's been only two ears for Dorothy, much more time has passed in Oz, and she doesn't know how to cope. The Scarecrow says Glinda has been missing for ten years, and Dorothy doesn't trust the new queen, Ozma. Ozma's not too wild about her, either, and decides to bring the Gale farmhouse to Oz to transport them all back. Angry, Dorothy uses some magic she's picked up to cause the house to land on Ozma. But Ozma is protected, and it instead lands on Uncle Henry and Aunt Em! Needless to say, Dorothy is not happy with this development—but that's where this particular story ends. It does a god job of setting up the series, and creating the circumstances under which Dorothy will eventually take over Oz in novels. And if this is your first exposure to Danielle Paige's version of Oz, yes, it's definitely not like the Oz that L. Frank Baum first imagined!
• Next comes The Spelling Bee of Oz by Robin Hess. This is a book I've known about for years, as Robin is a long-time friend, and he read portions of this at some of our local Oz events when I was a kid. Elizabeth "Zeebee" Warren is from California, Amal is from Somalia, but they both end up in Oz on an adventure involving a revolution by the cats of Oz. The Nomes and, of course, lots of Oz celebrities also get involved. It's been a while, so I don't remember much else, but it was fun and Ozzy. Having a character from the outside world but not the United States was a fun addition, however. Naturally, it all ends well, and the Spelling Bee, who can both spell well and cast magic spells, is a fun new character.
• Finally (for now) comes Yookoohoos of Oz by Paul Dana, continuing his saga of Button-Bright, Ojo, and the Yookoohoos. Since this is part of a series, I don't want to give away too much, but there's a whole mess of Yookoohoos, and some of their secrets that even they have forgotten about are uncovered.

And there is a lot more to come!

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 Reading

I may not have had a lot of time to write about it lately, but the reading has continued. So I thought I'd do a little catching up over the next few days.

• My rereading of the works of Eloise Jarvis McGraw continued with The Golden Goblet, which I believe is the last book she wrote set in Egypt. Ranofer dreams of becoming a goldsmith, but his embittered stepbrother, Gebu, who is in charge of him, will only let him assist in the smithy. But when Ranofer finds out that Gebu is using him to steal gold, he threatens to expose him. Gebu solves that by giving Ranofer an apprenticeship—in his own stonecutter's shop! As much as he hates stonecutting, Ranofer is pragmatic enough to go along and do his best. But when Ranofer finds out more skullduggery that Gebu is up to, he sees an opportunity to take charge of his own destiny. As always, McGraw does a terrific job of evoking Egypt by showing it to us through the characters' eyes, not ours. We see and hear and feel and smell Egypt as an Egyptian would, and our experience becomes richer for it. This is also a pretty exciting book, with all kinds of twists, but it all comes to a satisfying conclusion, as one would expect.
• I also read Eloise's only play, a little one-act called Steady, Stephanie! Ah, the affairs of the heart of a mid-twentieth century teenager! This comedy involves Stephanie, naturally, her steady boyfriend, Mike, and the new boy in town, Bronco, who Stephanie thinks is kind of exciting, until she actually gets to know him. Stephanie's kid sister, Georgia, pops in with the occasional bon mot, wry observation, or bit of advice. I tried to stage a production, or at least a reading, when I chaired the 2016 edition of OzCon International in Portland, as McGraw is from the area, but I never could get a straight answer on the rights. Apparently this was a bit of a relief to Inana McGraw, a guest that year and the artist formerly know as Lauren Lynn McGraw (and before that, Lauren McGraw Wagner). From what I remember, one of the characters is based on her, and she wasn't too wild about it.
• Another book from the '60s that I reread for the first time in decades was The Blue Emperor of Oz by Henry S. Blossom. This was one of the earliest extarcanonical Oz books, as Blossom self-published it in 1966, even though most of the Oz books, and their characters, were still under copyright at the time. I bought a copy of the 1982 second edition direct from Henry Blossom at one of my earliest Winkie Conventions, and this is only the second time I've read it. The Blue Emperor's drinking mug is in danger of being broken, which would be disastrous for the Blue Emperor. The problem is, nobody seems able to remember him! But he is Ozma's grandfather and Pomus' brother, so naturally Kabumpo gets involved early on. Meanwhile, in an Ohio pawn shop, Jam finds the head of the Gump, who assists him in getting back to Oz. Yes, many adventures and hijinks ensue before the Blue Emperor is restored, and everyone celebrates in the Emerald City before heading home again. This is a very Thompson-esque story, with visits to several "interesting" little communities, but the characters never lose track of their goal. It's a fun little romp, and now I'm just sorry it took me so long to get back to it.
• I've been wanting to read the Royal Explorers of Oz series for some time now, and finally broke down and acquired the omnibus edition of all four books in one. It's a little daunting to read them all at once, so I figure I'll just stretch this out over time by just reading one book at a time. Naturally, I started with Book I, The Voyage of the Crescent Moon. It's just a nice little sail around the continent on the Crescent Moon, with Captain Samuel Salt entertaining such visitors as honeymooning couple Maria and Derek (from The Bashful Baker of Oz), the Red Jinn, Trot and Cap'n Bill, and some visiting mermaids, among others. While they do a lot of exploring, Salt and his crew also have some tasks to perform. They then cross paths with Prince Bobo of Boboland, who is not the most diplomatic or savvy ruler (early on in the book, he manages to offend Queen Zixi of Ix by presenting her with a mirror!). But the Crescent Moon takes him home anyway, after Bobo's crew mutinies, as it's on the way to Ozamaland. That's right, in Book II, Tandy's finally going home!

Well, my pile of books I've read has gotten smaller now, but I still have a few more to go. I guess I'll just have to tell you about them later this week!

The Latest Oz Reading

Oh, I have been vory busy lately—reading lots of Oz and Oz-adjacent books, but not much spare time to write about them here! But I've managed to carve a little time out rght now, so I'm going to see how many I can write about now.

• The Wonderful Arts of Oz by Daniel "Munch" Kinske. This is a big coffee table book that is pretty much what the cover says. This folio has many examples of art (Oz and otherwise) by W. W. Denslow, work done for the 1902 musical stage extravaganza version of The Wizard of Oz, photographs of Ozcot, L. Frank Baum's Hollywood home, the stage show of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, Oz illustrations by John R. Neill, and publicity material and photographs pertaining to both the 1925 silent film and the famous 1939 Technicolor film adaptations of The Wizard of Oz. It is a glorious book, and many of the pictures were new to me. Even the ones I knew could reveal new insights when reproduced at this size, however. It includes an introduction by Judy Garland's photographic stand-in, Caren Marsh-Doll. I do hove two complaints. One is that the font Denslow is used for many large blocks of explanatory text. Denslow works great for headlines and other short snippets of text, but it is very hard to read in extended passages. The other complaint is that it only goes up to 1939! So much Oz has come along since then, and there is plenty of material for a second volume. I would have also liked to see more from the books, as the Neill section is frustratingly brief. Still, this is a spectacular volume, and I very much appreciate having it.
• I picked up a whole bunch of fun items from Lulu Publishing, including a reproduction of the Fall 1961 Reilly & Lee catalog. It's brief, and there's really not even that much about Oz, but it's a fascinating look at what else the publishers of the Oz books sold. I'd love to see other catalogs from Reilly & Lee's history reprinted in a similar form.
• The Bashful Baker of Oz by Marcus Mébès reprints a charming tale from the 2003 issue of Oziana (which I talk about here). I was mildly disappointed that it wasn't expanded more into an even longer story, but it still works, and I'm happy to have this.
• Dorothy ond the Wooden Soldiers of Oz by Ken Romer is a brief little tale, adapting some characters and incidents from the second Magic Land book, Oorfeen Deuce and His Wooden Soldiers, published in Russia. This is nice because the pages are big and the illustrations are simple, allowing the readers to color them. I doubt many Oz scholars will take this seriously, but I will certainly enjoy having this in my collection.
• My reread of the Oz series continues with a slight sideways excursion to Sky Island, prepping the way for Trot and Cap'n Bill to make it to Oz in my next wave of Oz reading. Unilke The Sea Fairies, this is a tightly plotted tale, with Trot, Cap'n Bill, and their new friend Button-Bright having to deal with one obstacle after another in their efforts to reach home again once they reach the titular island. I couldn't help but thinking how much easier it would have gone for the Boolooroo if he had just let them go. But he had to have his way, which led to his downfall. Much is made in this book of the appearance of Polychrome, but it's little more than a cameo, as she just comes in for a few pages to straighten things out in the Pink Country, and then she's gone again.
• That wasn't the only Baum book I got to read over the past few weeks. I was asked to be part of the proofreading team for a new book, and I was happy to look at The Maid of Arran, believed to be the first widely published edition of one of L. Frank Baum's earliest works. This was a play he wrote and starred in as a young man. It was while he was touring with The Maid of Arran that he met, wooed, and married Maud Gage, in fact. This is much more than a reprint of the play, however. It has many essays of background and analysis of the play, its part in Baum's career, the other people involved, publicity material, contemporary critiques, and even an excerpt of the novel A Princess of Thule, upon which the play was based. It is, in my opinion, the best analysis of a single work by L. Frank Baum since The Annotated Wizard of Oz. Besides the color paperback version I linked to above, it is also available in black and white and a deluxe hardcover edition.
• I finally got to read a proper Baum Oz book with Tik-Tok of Oz. Having now seen a production of the play it's based on, The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, which in turn was based on Ozma of Oz, I can certainly see the throughline from one version to the next. Yes, a lot of this retreads Ozma of Oz, but there are a lot of original elements that make it nicely Ozzy in its own right. Quox the Dragon is especially fun.
• Finally (for now), my new job has given me the financial security to take up collecting the works of Rachel R. Cosgrove again, and I managed to pick up her second book (after The Hidden Valley of Oz), Forsythia Finds Murder. She was married by this time, and so this is also the firstbook to be published under her new name of Rachel C. Payes. Forsythia Brown is a successful young New York author who, faced with a case of writer's block, heads to a resort in the Poconos to work through it. There, she meets the usual eccentrics and other characters who inhabit a novel such as this. It takes quite a while for anyone to die, but even before it happens all the players have their backgrounds and motives aired out, and it really comes as no surprise when the titular murder finally happens. Naturally Forsythia becomes a suspect, and also provides the final clue that solves the issue in the end. She even manages to find romance amid all the turmoil! Aside from being a gripping, if perhaps too pat, mystery, this shows us a window into the upper crust of New York society of sixty-some years ago. Lots of alcohol and tobacco are at the center of much of the socializing, and some characters also prove to be incorrigible gossips. It is not a book I would recommend to most Oz fans, but if you are interested in this side of a Royal Historian, you may want to track down a copy. I had hoped to read all of Rachel's book (that I don't already have) in publication order, but acquiring them all is proving to be a scavanger hunt, so i may jump around a bit.

I have lots of other books in my current Oz reading cycle, both rereads and new stories, so I'll have a few more of these entries in the coming weeks.

The Latest Oz Reading

Thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign, I got caught up on the comic book series The Zombieful World of Oz. Dorothy's grown up now, but is recruited by her old friends to fight the victims of a plague that is causing the dead to arise and wreak havoc. Thankfully, the people behind this tale know about the books, as evidenced by the zombie Wheeler on the cover of the ashcan edition! Other characters who show up include Jack Pumpkinhead, Mombi, and Languidere. The art in this one is crisp and sharp, and has a clear steampunk vibe to it. But wow, is their geneaology all off! Dorothy, as often happens in these kinds of retellings becomes a witch. But it turns out that's because she's the baby sister of the wicked witches! So somehow, Glinda is her aunt, and the Wizard and Mombi are her grandparents??? Yeah, this is definitely a reimagining.

What Ozzy Thing Am I Doing Now?

It has been a busy couple of weeks around here, as you'll see by the flurry of new blog posts you'll be seeing this week. But here are two of the biggies:

• Remember my mysterious other book I read, but couldn't tell you about yet? Well, here it is! I'm also a Doctor Who fan, and so I was very excited to hear about the new book The Wonderful Doctor of Oz by Jacqueline Rayner. Yes, it's a full-blown Wizard of Oz/Doctor Who crossover. And I get to tell you all about it because Laura and I were recruited to record an episode of the Trap One podcast about it! So, here it is!
  
• My other big recent Oz project involves the L. Frank Baum Memorial Award, the International Wizard of Oz Club's highest honor. It is decided on each year by the previous winners, which for some extraordinary reason has included me since 2013. Normally, we keep very tight-lipped about who won so that it comes as a complete surprise to everyone at the National Oz Convention when it's announced. But thanks to our current pandemic (get vaccinated and keep wearing your masks, everyone!), the last two years it has all been virtual, and the winners have been announced via a This Is Your Life-inspired video. Since this year's winner is someone I've known for over forty years, and I had all the contacts, I offered to put the video together. So, here is the announcement video for my long-time Oz friend, Lynn Beltz.
  

I think that's going to do it for big-time Oz projects for a while, since I start back to work tomorrow and that's going to keep me pretty busy. But you never know what this crazy hobby of mine will throw at you!

The Latest Oz Reading

The penultimate batch of Oz things I've read? Believe it or not, a whole bunch of magazines with major Oz articles, or even an entire issue devoted to Oz, have come out in the last few months.

• I caught word that Cinefex magazine, a trade publication devoted to movie special effects, was shutting down its print edition and rapidly selling off back issues. So I quickly snagged a copy of issue 133, which included a major article on the making of Oz the Great and Powerful. (Good thing I got issue 22 years ago, but if not, I would have gotten it for their Return to Oz article. While I was buying the more recent issue, I also picked up an issue about Aquaman for Laura!) The article was interesting, but definitely aimed at more of an industry audience than to an Oz fan. What surprised me is how much of the effects were practical, and there was a lot less reliance on computer generated imagery than in many other current movies. It's definitely a great addition to my collection, and to the broader knowledge of Oz.
• Illustration Magazine #71 has a major article on W. W. Denslow, focusing on his time in Bermuda. As this was recently covered in a similar article in The Baum Bugle, there wasn't a lot I didn't know. But the overview of his career was thorough and informative, and the reproduction of the illustrations, in full color on high quality glossy paper, is gorgeous.
• American Road Magazine devoted its spring 2021 issue to Oz road tripping. Surprisingly, they filled 128 pages on the topic! To be sure, some of the sites were pretty tangential, but they also found some great sites, some I hadn't even been aware of before. Much to their credit, American Road did a really deep dive into the books for inspiration, even venturing outside of Oz with a profile of the Sunny Jim cave in La Jolla, California, and how it relates to The Sea Fairies. They also have a great write-up on the film version of The Wiz and the locations where it was shot in New York City. (I did not know that they did not shoot the discovery of the Cowardly Lion in front of the New York Public Library, but on a soundstage where the Library was recreated. It makes sense in hindsight, however.) They even have one trip to Alaska! (That's probably a challenge to drive to, however.)
• Finally, I can't seem to find a link to it anywhere outside of ebay, but some outfit called Hollywood Spotlight that puts out magazines devoted to single movies that you see at grocery store checkouts put out The Ultimate Guide to The Wizard of Oz. To their credit, they talk about the story's origins as a book and mention the silent movies as well as some of the more recent film and television adaptations, but this is packed with information about The Movie. There weren't a lot of new revelations, but it was a fun package, and I suspect most other readers will learn something they didn't lready know.

And now I'm caught up—except for one other book. But since I'm doing something special for that, I'll just save that one for the moment and tell you about that when I can.

The Latest Oz Reading

Yeah, I'm still catching up on what I've read recently. This is the comic book edition!

• Oz Annual: Patchwork Girl from Zenoscope sees Queen Dorothy having to deal with the dangerous criminal Patch and her bug companion escaping not only Ojo prison, but Oz! The tornado they summon to destroy the prison also transports her to Kansas, where she uses her powers to turn people into lifeless rag dolls to go on a spree. To step her, Dorothy's heading home! Yeah, like most of Zenoscope's Oz books, this is a weirdly warped mirror of the "real" Oz, but at least they seem to be digging into the books for inspiration now. Patch is truly creepy, and Dorothy has to make some hard choices to deal with events. And we get some nice flashbacks to her time in Kansas before she went to Oz.
• The Legend of Oz: The Wicked West #21, after a successful Kickstarter campaign, continues the story of the Wild West version of Oz now that Queen Ozma has been restored to the throne. One of her first decrees is that Gale must turn over the enchanted guns, which does not go over well at all. Oh, and then there's the looming threat of the Nome King to worry about as well.
• Tribute: L. Frank Baum is a comic book autobiography of—well, you can probably guess from the title. Because of the low page count, this is necessarily brief and doesn't cover much of his life in depth. But they do touch on just about everything he did in his life, not just The Wizard of Oz. It's mild and harmless, but also needs to be taken with a grain or two of salt.
• Cthulu Invades Oz, another Kickstarter success, is just what it says on the cover. What's intriguing about this is that it starts off with Dorothy in Kansas, convincing Cthulu to invade Oz so as to distract it from our plane of reality! It only gets worse from there, as we see the results of the Old Ones taking over Oz in a series of short stories, spread out over several months. The magicians and wizards do their best to keep them at bay, but Cthulu finds allies in Oz as well. The final result is surprising, but then Dorothy comes and presents Cthulu with some surprising options of what to do next. I'll just drop the name of the follow-up book, revealed on the final page: Cthulu Invades Wonderland.

My Latest Oz Readings

I'm still clearing out the backlog of Oz things I have read recently. Today, it's new Oz fiction.

• 20,000 Leagues Under Oz by Marin Elizabeth Xiques and Chris Dulabone tells the tale of the town of Ciudad del Niño, New Mexico, which was transplanted to Oz in an earlier book. The citizens of the town are getting used to their new home and all that living in Oz entails. More importantly, Paxton the pig decides he wants to go out and have adventures on the high seas. Eventually, he is allowed to join Captain Samuel Salt and his crew on a voyage on the Crescent Moon, where they eventually meet up with King Anko, Queen Aquareine, and the Sea Fairies. It's not a terribly deep book, but it is a lot of fun.
• The End of Oz by Danielle Paige. This is the final novel in the "Dorothy Must Die" series, and boy, does it end with a bang! Amy is now in Ev, where Dorothy is hiding out with the Nome King. Eventually, the Nome King persuades Dorothy to marry him so that they can jointly rule over both Oz and Ev. But even this hardened, selfish, bitter version of Dorothy doesn't entirely trust the Nome King, and thanks to some timely intervention from Amy, she finds a way to not only defeat the Nome King, but also redeems herself, giving her younger self the opportunity to become a better person. But she does alter Ozian history, so it will be interesting to see what happens in the prequel novellas. Something else that makes this book interesting is that many chapters are told from Dorothy's point of view. Before, we saw events unfold only through Amy's viewpoint, but that was not possible here, so Dorothy became a secondary viewpoint character. It made for an interesting tonal shift, and experiencing her point of view was a neat twist.

My Latest Oz Reading

Oh, so many things I've read recently, and so little time to actually write about it. But I'll try to squeeze in a few reactions over the coming days and weeks. I'll group them in loose categories, but these two aren't with anything else, so I'll just do them.

• Pharaoh is my Eloise Jarvis McGraw reread this time around. This is her only adult novel, and for good reason. It covers a lot of political wranglings in ancient Egypt during the rule of four different Pharaohs, and it is just a plain long epic. There are also some hints of adult topics, but these are touched upon rather than described explicitly. Thankfully it is also split into four parts, so I was able to read one part, take a break and read something else, read another part, take a break, and so on. Anyone who thinks gamemanship and oneupmanship is a new thing will learn otherwise when reading this book, as it keeps happening, primarily from Hatshepsut, who convinces herself that she should be Pharaoh, and does all she can to make it so, up to and including exiling her nephew, Thutmose III, to Babylon. (Looking over the biographies I've linked to, I can see that Eloise may have made up some of the events and relationships in this book, which she herself does not deny. She clearly states in her foreward that this is a novel based on what is known of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Plus, we've likely had another fifty-some years of research and discoveries since Pharaoh was published, too.) It is a sprawling, epic story, and I'm glad I reread it. But something tells me I may not get around to reading it again.
• The Wizard of MGM by A. Arnold Gillespie. If you think the name Buddy Gillespie may be familiar, you may know him as one of the chief special effects men at the M-G-M studio during the Golden Age of Hollywood. He started off in silent films (one of his earliest credits was the original 1925 film version of Ben Hur), and before long he was running the entire department. This was his attempt to distill all his knowledge and experience into a textbook that he hoped would benefit future filmmakers. He covers all kinds of pictures, and it might surprise some people just how many films need special effects of one sort or another. At times, it does get a little dry and technical, but Gillespie also peppers this book with all kinds of anecdotes about his long Hollywood career and the people he's worked with. With a title like this, you'd think there would be a lot about the special effects in The Wizard of Oz, but surprisingly there isn't although there is some. So this book is for the true hardcore movie and special effects fans more than Oz fans.

The Latest Oz Reading

Following the second part of Pharaoh, I delved into Witches, the fourteenth collection of the Fables comic book. And now it's really starting to get Ozzy! Bufkin the flying monkey has a good deal to do, and even gets a chapter named for him in this volume's main storyline, about the latest maneuvering as the Fables face yet another powerful adversary. Bufkin even loses his wings in an accident! But the real star is Ozma, who is now acknowledged as being the little blonde witch in the coven. She's even on the cover. Ozma decides a change in leadership is needed, and moves to remove Frau Totenkinder as head. And Ozma proves to be very good in a leadership role, but that's partly because she knows when to call in help so as to make it look as if she's not involved. There's also a backup story about the problems when goblins try to go against their nature, all because of baseball. The whole series is pretty amazing, but if you only want to read it for the Oz content, and a single winged monkey isn't Ozzy enough, this is the collection you should start with, as Oz gets stamped hard onto the Fables brand here. And Ozma's role only gest bigger after this.