BOOKS!

Yes, in addition to to the 1982 animated Paramount/Toho Wizard of Oz (which in order to get a good copy for DVD-conversion, I've had to order three times!) and five out of the nine Oz Kids video tapes, I ordered three Oz books.

• The Emerald Wand of Oz and Trouble Under Oz by Sherwood Smith and illustrated by William Stout
• Locasta & The Three Adepts: The Unknown Witches of Oz by David Hardenbrook

I received The Unknown Witches and Trouble Under Oz first, so I opted to read Unknown Witches.

If you don't like the name Tattypoo or what Ruth Thompson did with the Good Witch of the North in The Giant Horse of Oz, the you may want to read this book, BUT...

• The book follows several story lines. When Baum did this, he worked it out so you wouldn't get confused, but Hardenbrook will wait several chapters to pick back up where one storyline left off.
• Magic is used in over-abundance!
• Ozma and Dorothy have let themselves age to 17!
• Ozma gets a love interest!
• The three Adepts have new hard-to-pronounce names!
• The grandrarents of the Adepts are revealed!
• There's yet another Wicked Witch of the South!
• OZ GETS CONQUERED!

After reading it, I was glad that Emerald Wand had arrived, along with the Dorothy calendar and two of the Oz Kids videos. (I'll have to blog about them soon...)

I'll let you know what I think of Emerald Wand after I'm done.