The Seven Blue Mountains of Oz: Tippetarius in Oz

2000 brought the second in The Seven Blue Mountains of Oz trilogy. However, by this time Buckethead Enterprises had reorganized as Tails of the Cowardly Lion and Friends. A little goof happened during production and the book wound up being oversized. 11 inches high compared to the 8.5 inch of the other books. However, considering what happens in the story, it might be fitting that this book towers over the others in the series.

Aleda, a young woman from North Carolina, goes hang gliding but finds herself in Oz, befriended by a sixty foot giant she names Orlando who's very cautious about possibly hurting normal-sized people. Despite his good intentions, Orlando can't let her leave.

Meanwhile, Dinny decides he will travel Oz for a time, and to protect his secrets, Zim enchants him so he will not remember Zim when he is with other people. Dinny soon meets Orlando and Aleda, and they decide to make a break for it to the Emerald City before the people of Herku come to take Orlando away. However, Dinny is forced to travel on foot.

And meanwhile, in Lostland, King Whippetarius dies and Slippetatius is about to take the throne. However, the Queen tasks them to find their missing brother Tippetarius, who she reveals they knew better as Amalea their sister. (Go read book one.) They find neither, but they do find someone who looks a lot like their sister...

Orlando, being a good giant, is given golden rings he can wear to make himself a normal sized human being or remove to become a giant. Aleda and Orlando go on a tour through Oz with the Scarecrow and Scraps, and they come across a village ruled by a fairy princess named Celestia who was unaware that she is under another fairy's rule. The four manage to find Zim and when he discovers Celestia will attack the Emerald City, he must go and try to put a stop to it.

Many secrets about the characters are unraveled, but more questions arise. However, I can't say too much about those without spoiling it.

Grandy manages to keep her plots moving at a good pace so as not to lose the reader. I will note that the plots I mentioned get tied up about three quarters of the way into the book and there is a new focus for the rest of the book.

The illustrations, possibly because of the size of the book, feel more sparse than they did in book one. There are fewer illustrations of what happens in the story. Sometimes whimsical pictures of Zim appear instead of actual illustrations of what's going on in the story. The pictures that are there are good, I just wish there'd been more. (A picture of Brown Bleegum was obviously recycled from the first book.)

Anyway, this was a trilogy. But would it deliver in the end? We'll see... (Seriously, I haven't read it yet. I don't know.)

Oh, and you can get Tippetarius in Oz here.