The Royal Podcast of Oz: L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

In this episode, Jared Davis interviews Clayton Spinney and Sean Gates, the director and writer of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, an independent production set for completion in 2012. As always, you can listen and download at the podcast site, or use the player below.

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(And yes, Jared plans to blog again soon!)

Depicting Oz: Dorothy Gale of Kansas

I spoke before my thoughts on how I feel Oz is best depicted and how often it shouldn't be depicted. For this post, I'd like to express some more on Dorothy, again referencing past and certain portrayals.

(* Any mistakes or errors please let me know so I may fix mistakes to proper formatting *)

When "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" was published, it was 1899-1900, the Turn of the Century, the new 20th Century and still the time of Pioneers.

Electricity had to be fully realized and mainstream, so the families at that time would use oil lamps with lit candles, and rely more on resourcefulness, neighbourly help and elbow grease.

When I imagine Dorothy, I don't see her as a very pretty girl. Not to say that she is ugly, but just normal looking and, as Princess Langwidere says in 'Ozma of Oz' "Not at all beautiful . . . but a certain style of prettiness". Add that she is an American farmgirl, I prefer not to and don't see her with blonde hair. Nothing to do with Judy Garland but more with Baum and perception, a Dorothy with brown hair looks more normal and properly akin to a farm's setting than a blonde Dorothy - in turn I usually imagine Ozma to have blonde or a more beautiful coloured hair. Dorothy has been well known to be illustrated with a blonde bob by John R. Neill, Eric Shanower and the other artists who have done the Famous 40 and other Oz books. However I feel like this makes her too similar to other girls and less of her own person.

Dorothy having brown hair and visiting a magic land like Oz, Ev etc. stands out more in contrast than a blonde Dorothy coming from a happier Kansas and visiting the magic land of Oz. In film she has been given blonde hair in the 1976 Australian M15+ "Rock 'N' Roll Road Movie", the 1982 Toho anime, 1987 direct-to-video "Dorothy Meets Ozma of Oz" (faithful) half-hour short and a Funky Fables anime. To a lesser extent, you could also include Disney's "Rainbow Road" excerpt played by Darlene, and the 1994 Russian live-action alteration film.
Notable illustrations with blonde Dorothy are Charles Santore and Yutaka Ono for the Japanese books. And there Yutaka gives Dorothy some starry eyes, rosy cheeks, flowery head band, and some near-fancy clothing. He has illustrated the first 3 Oz books several times and has drawn the characters differently, but each time Dorothy is a pretty girl (also the Good Witch of the North is young+pretty and the west Witch is green-skinned). Yutaka doesn't ALWAYS do Dorothy blonde, but they do have a philosophy that girls with blonde hair and blue eyes signifies innocence, though of course this is not always so true in real life or other media.
I believe that Dorothy looks better suited to brown hair and wearing simple farming gowns when experiencing her visit in Oz and is more appropriate that way, than with blonde (short) hair with pretty dresses and "Mary-Jane" shoes with straps which can make her seem less distinct from and bear a greater resemblance to Alice who dreams of Wonderland/Looking Glass, who was first illustrated with blonde hair (although the real life Alice Liddel had a black bob - as the real Dorothy was a five month old baby, little is known about the actual hair).

Another matter concerning Dorothy, moreso than her hair colour or length, is her dressing colour: Baum of course writes her wearing a blue-and-white check gingham gown, "somewhat faded with many washes" and a pink bonnet (plus a basket of food). Yutaka Ono has often drawn Dorothy outside of blue and without her other bearings. My favourite colour is blue so I am a little perplexed when someone avoids this description in the original text, but worst of all the neglecting of a bonnet - protection from the sun - and the basket - food for sustenance along the long journey. It is up to the individual artist to draw Dorothy how they like, but I wonder why at times they take her out of the blue and give her something else like red, pink or some different colour.

- Please don't take this to think that I don't like blondes or pink, I don't mind Dorothy being shown as a blonde when she's done so well by Eric Shanower or John R Neill; I just get tired of seeing it so often and have seen more dark-haired versions -

Baum mentions that Uncle Henry has a long (gray) beard, rough boots, looks stern and solemn, rarely speaks and "worked hard from morning till night", while Aunt Em has lost the sparkles from her eyes and red from her cheeks & lips, is thin and gaunt and doesn't smile. Several adaptations leave out Henry's beard (sometimes completely shaved or with just a moustache & balding hair), but more to the point tend to make Aunt Em fat.
Their age is never specified or hinted at in the text, but the few images of them suggest they could be in their late 40s, early-mid 50s and even late 50s/early-60s. At times however, they are depicted on screen as being old enough to be grandparents, another depiction I don't agree with. Yes it's true that exceedingly hard work and weight can make one appear older than they actually are, but not necessarily DECADES older.

When you consider the time of the story's setting and that the family is poor, it's easier to understand with Baum's description than the chubby-grand portrayals. They are so poor that their beds are out in the open, in the ONE ROOM which also has the dining table + chairs, the cyclone cellar and "a rusty looking cooking stove", all within just these four walls of the house, a house whose paint has peeled away and gets built from wood "carried by wagon many miles". They have no electricity (or even shaving foam) so Henry can't trim his beard as well even if he could, nor should Em fatten up with so little food and neither can Dorothy afford to have dolls or pretty dressings. Some adaptations don't show the family as poor, which is why those tellings give the house some more windows or rooms and even a second floor, but this again could be avoiding the original text description.
The weather is constantly sunny and hot but also cloudy, so the crops don't always get the proper treatment. Crops that are below expectation for sale receive little money, and little money limits the supplies farming families can get. When money is limited, you need to spend what little you have on the more important things like food or house/farm things, and cannot get treats like fancy dresses or toys.

Although Toto is the one black animal that stands out against the grey surroundings, it is this dog that keeps Dorothy happy and appropriately in playful character for her age, preventing the harsh realities of life affecting her prematurely. And an energetic dog with a playful attitude is better than a toy which can get broken and may sometimes be rendered useless, even if it is another mouth to feed.

I know little of farms and what they had or did in that time of life, but I am sure that a trap door in the middle of the house as a cyclone-cellar is safer and closer, even easier, to access during a hurricane or windy storm than one outside the house, as seen in MGM (or even Disney's "Return to Oz").

When Kansas is dreary, Aunt Em and Uncle Henry are worn and grey, and Dorothy has brown hair with simple gowns, then the visit to the fairyland of Oz has a greater and much clearer contrast and shows for a much better telling of the story.

Hearts and Minds

Since Valentine's Day just recently ended, I suppose it would be appropriate to talk about hearts. And since this is an Oz post, I'm sure the first subject to come to anyone's mind would be the Tin Woodman, who sought one for his tin body from the Wizard of Oz. The Wizard had no magical powers at this point, but he still provided Nick Chopper with a plush heart stuffed with sawdust, and his friend the Scarecrow with brains made of bran mixed with pins and needles. The story makes it clear that the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow, respectively, were already kind-hearted and intelligent, but they needed the symbols to be satisfied. In Tin Woodman, Nick explains that his heart is kind rather than loving as an excuse for not having sought out Nimmie Amee, the girl he had planned to marry before his series of axidents. Really, though, I think it's just that, what with his new life and new friends, he really no longer had any interest in Nimmie Amee. He is certainly capable of showing love, even if he claims he isn't.

Some of the later Oz books also play with the idea of hearts and brains. Jack Pumpkinhead uses the seeds in his pumpkins for brains, and while he's hardly the brightest man in Oz, he has occasional flashes of insight. Dr. Pipt gave the Glass Cat brains of shiny pink stones that made her conceited, and a ruby heart that wasn't very compassionate. The Wizard temporarily made her more humble by giving her transparent brains at the end of Patchwork Girl, but she has the pink ones back again in Magic. By the time he brings the Patchwork Girl to life, Pipt seems to have improved on his brain-making abilities, with a set of powders that each provide a particular trait used for her brains. In Tik-Tok, the Great Jinjin Tititi-Hoochoo is said to have no heart, so that emotion and compassion will not interfere with his justice. Moving on to Ruth Plumly Thompson's books, the reanimated Terrybubble seems to function just fine without physical brains or a heart, but he does prefer to keep Speedy in his chest where his heart once was. When dealing with such matters, it's not entirely clear whether the presence or absence of hearts and brains really impact these characters, or they just think they do. In the end, though, I guess it amounts to about the same thing.

Before the Umbrella

Cross-posted from Vovatia.

Much of the plot of Speedy in Oz takes place on Umbrella Island, a land that flies through the air under the power of a magical umbrella. We're told that this was not always the case, however. According to Waddy, the wizard who rigged up the umbrella in the first place, they'd only been flying for about seven years by the time of the story. In a country where people "go on for centuries," as stated later in the book (p. 154) by the royal counselor Kachewka, that must seem like no time at all. The flying has been pretty well ingrained in the culture, however, as demonstrated by the mentions of it in the national anthem. So what was the island like before being able to fly, and how did becoming airborne change it?

Waddy himself addresses these questions to some extent in his speech to the giant Loxo. The island's original location was "seventy leagues from the mainland of Ev," and close enough to Pingaree from Rinkitink to maintain regular trade with it. We're told at the beginning of Rinkitink that the pearl-rich island only trades with the Kingdom of Rinkitink, but I suppose this could have changed over time. Anyway, if you look at the map from the Tik-Tok endpapers, you'll notice that the Nonestic Ocean is only shown in one small corner, and Ruth Plumly Thompson seems to have initially made an effort to fit all new islands she introduced into that one bit of ocean. She decides to go off the map a bit by the time of Captain Salt, but was apparently still hoping to squeeze everything in when she wrote Speedy.

While still a sealocked nation, the main industry of the island was the raising of silkworms and manufacture of silk fabrics. The suggestion is that the climate was much like that of China, and the people dressed accordingly, in loose blouses and wide silk trousers, with braids in their hair. During the island's flights, however, Waddy introduced fauna from other lands and climes, leading to "rich and tropical" foliage. The wizard also planted the umbrella trees found all over the island, which makes me wonder whether it was even called Umbrella Island prior to the flight upgrade. For what it's worth, umbrella trees are also mentioned as growing in the blue forest in Ojo (see p. 147/ch. 8), and David Perry picks a parasol for his grandmother from one in the Winkie Country in Enchanted Island. Even if umbrella trees were only a recent introduction to Umbrella Island, however, a silk-producing country might still have been known for its parasols. Did Waddy use an umbrella as a means of locomotion because umbrellas were already popular on the island, or did the culture change to reflect the wizard's invention? Thompson and her characters never really tell us.

As for fauna, the pun-filled nature of the Ozian universe makes it pretty much necessary that Umbrella Island would have umbrella birds, which are actually native to Central and South America, but a Nonestic umbrella bird isn't necessarily the same as a mundane one. We're also told that the island is home to forty-six cows, thirty-seven sheep, twenty-two horses, a herd of goats, and a talking cat. John R. Neill's picture on p. 35 also shows a pig, a goose, a chicken, a squirrel, a frog, a dog, and a mouse. How many of these species are native to the country and how many were introduced from other lands is something else we don't really know. In the course of the story, Umbrella Island also acquires an animated dinosaur skeleton, but he's actually American (or, from his own perspective, Virtulan).

A Terrybubble State of Affairs

Cross-posted from my LiveJournal.

One character I see cropping up from time to time on lists of favorites is literally a living fossil. Terrybubble is, in fact, a fossilized dinosaur skeleton, with the bones fused together and animated by a geyser in Yellowstone National Park. He ended up on Umbrella Island in the company of Speedy, a scientist's nephew from Long Island who had been to Oz once before, in The Yellow Knight of Oz. He tries to be a pet for Speedy, and is basically a huge skeletal creature that acts like a dog. (Hey, maybe he's sort of the prototype for Dino from The Flintstones, although Terrybubble can talk.) His odd name comes from Speedy's attempt to say "terrible" after being shot into the air by the geyser.

It's not entirely clear what kind of dinosaur Terrybubble is supposed to be, and it's likely that Thompson didn't have any particular type in mind. He walks on his hind legs, but also has a long neck and fairly long arms. One actual species is mentioned in the text, however, and that's a megalosaurus, which ended Terrybubble's first life. The dinosaur says that their name for the predatory species was "mogerith" (or "mogger" for short), and that his home was the Valley of Virtula, perhaps located in or near modern Yellowstone. By his own admission, he was 400 years old when he died. One of his favorite activities is dythrambing, which involves bouncing around and spinning on his tail. I've heard that some scientists believe large dinosaurs weren't as slow and cumbersome as their size suggests, so perhaps Thompson was ahead of her time in making her own dinosaur creation so acrobatic.

It's interesting that, while dinosaurs have been considered cool by children for some time (I was certainly of that opinion in my own youth), Speedy initially comes across as quite bored at the prospect of seeing dinosaur bones. The book was published in 1934, and I suppose by this point dinosaurs were well enough known that Thompson could expect child readers to recognize one, but perhaps not as popular as they later would be.

Mr. Mooj Rising

To continue with my old posts on characters from Ojo, here's Mooj, a magician and a clockmaker, who was known to turn people into clocks. I'm cross-posting this from here.

The King of Seebania describes Mooj as a wise man from the north, who worked his way into the good graces of his (the king's) father. Eventually, the magician instituted a coup d'etat, somehow doing away with the old king and locking up his brother and daughter-in-law in a dungeon. As for the heir to the throne, Ree Alla Bad, Mooj made him promise to stay away from Seebania, and just for good measure went ahead and pushed him off a cliff. His wife Isomere turned out to already be pregnant, however, and the old king's brother Stephen managed to bribe the guards and escape with the baby. And that baby was Dorothy, whom Stephen somehow managed to smuggle to Kansas. Just kidding. The baby was actually Ojo, and as Prince Stephen became afraid to talk unless absolutely necessary, he came to be known as Unc Nunkie, the Silent One. And now you know the rest of the story. Not all of it, though, because the plot of Ojo is set in motion when Mooj finds out about the boy, and sends a message to the criminal community of Oz saying that anyone bringing Ojo to him would receive a reward of 5000 bags of sapphires. He does manage to get his hands on the boy, but Ozma and the Wizard of Oz arrive to save him. Ozma then proceeds to turn the crafty clockmaker into a drop of water in the Nonestic Ocean, deeming him too dangerous to leave in a conscious form.

While Mooj is said to have gained the support of the Seebanian populace by way of magic, and he's seen in a crown and velvet mantle when Ozma and her companions confront him in Shamsbad, it doesn't appear that he does a whole lot to take advantage of his position as king. Instead, he spends most of his time in his hut on a lonely mountain peak, tending to his clock-making. This led to some suggestion during the discussion of Ojo on the Nonestica mailing list that his goal wasn't gaining possession of the throne so much as neutralizing Seebania as a regional power.

What makes Mooj particularly memorable is how Neill chose to draw him. Thompson describes him as "a bent and evil-looking old Munchkin," and says that he looks "ridiculous" in royal regalia. Neill, however, chose to depict his face as showing signs of his chosen profession, resulting in a truly creepy individual.

Beargombo Snufferbux

Since Jared recently reviewed both Ojo and Speedy, I might as well cross-post some of my old entries on characters in these books. This particular post, concerning Snufferbux, is an excerpt from here.

When Ojo is kidnapped by a band of gypsies, he meets a fellow prisoner, a bear who was lured into the gypsies' clutches with honey. (Winnie-the-Pooh had been published just seven years prior to Ojo, so I guess it's possible this was an intentional reference to Pooh's honey obsession, but I'm not sure how likely this is. I mean, bears really DO like honey, after all.) The roving band forced the bear, whom they called Rufus, to dance, beg, and play the accordion at fairs. When he befriends Ojo, he says that his real name is Snufforious Buxorious Blundorious Boroso, which Ojo decides to shorten to Snufferbux. Considering that his first three names look like they could be adjectives, I would think that simply "Boroso" would have also worked as a nickname, but what do I know about bear names? Besides, "Snufferbux" is a fun name to say, and seems somehow appropriate. Thompson presumably intended the similarity to "snuffbox," although there's no actual connection or pun there as far as I can tell. Broadly speaking, Snufferbux fits into the common Thompsonian mold of sarcastic and curmudgeonly but fiercely loyal animals, of which Kabumpo is the most frequently used example. Anyway, when he and Ojo end up traveling with a bandit chief called Realbad, the bear is quite eager to protect the boy from the outlaw, who has expressed a wish to turn Ojo over to the nasty magician Mooj for a large reward.

Speedy in Oz

Remember Speedy, the little boy who visited in The Yellow Knight of Oz? Well, Thompson had to bring him back, right? Yep, and he got his own book in 1934 to boot!

Speedy in Oz opens with Umbrella Island, an island kept afloat in the sky by a giant magic umbrella, hitting Loxo the Giant in the head. He is so angry that he demands that in return, he be given a child of his choice to lace to his boots for him, and picks out a "boy" close to the king, who is named Sizzeroo. The people manage to convince Loxo to give them three months to prepare the "boy" for his future life, but it was actually Princess Gureeda who was selected. (The same style of clothing is worn by all inhabitants, which John R. Neill draws as resembling pajamas, though Thompson compares them to stereotypical Chinese garb; Gureeda also wears a single braid in her hair, like men on Umbrella Island usually do.)

Over in the Great Outside World, Speedy, a former visitor to Oz, is helping his Uncle Billy in his work at an excavation dig, when they get to a complete dinosaur skeleton. Speedy convinces his uncle to put it together, but shortly afterward, a geyser erupts, carrying Speedy and the skeleton high into the air. At the same time, the dinosaur's bones are fused together, and it comes to life. Able to speak English, Speedy names it Terrybubble (when he mispronounces "terrible"), and Terrybubble manages to keep Speedy in his chest, and they land on Umbrella Island.

When one the King's advisers sees Speedy, he suggests that Speedy be given to Loxo instead of Gureeda, but Speedy finds a friend in Waddy, the Wizard of Umbrella Island, who makes him his apprentice. When Umbrella Island crash lands in between two warring islands, it is Speedy who saves the island from destruction by a water cannon that can sink islands.

Terrybubble overhears the plan to give Speedy to Loxo, so he takes both Speedy and Gureeda to Oz, unwittingly bringing them straight to Loxo's cave. When Waddy discovers the disappearance, they head to Oz to enlist Ozma's help. She, the Wizard, and the Scarecrow devise a solution that works best for everyone. They trick Loxo into eating a cake that makes him shrink to a human size. In a surprising turn for a Thompson villain, he decides to live peacefully from then on. (After all, he can lace his own boots now.)

Speedy returns home, but Waddy misses his apprentice, and Thompson says she feels sure that Speedy will one day return to Umbrella Island and marry Gureeda and become the next king. (A story she never told.)

Thompson said Speedy in Oz was her favorite of her Oz books. For me, it's not hard to see why. It boasts one of the tightest plots of her books. There are no extra countries the characters visit that do not play a role in the story. And there's no contradictions with Baum as his characters aren't used very much.

So, if there's one Thompson book you ever read, I heartily recommend Speedy in Oz.

Everything's Coming Up Ojo

In The Patchwork Girl of Oz, L. Frank Baum introduces his fourth boy protagonist to the Oz series, Ojo the Unlucky. He's not really a stereotypically boyish boy, but instead rather solemn and insecure, with a tendency to break out in tears more quickly than many of the girls. When we first see him, he's living in a small house in the middle of a blue forest with an old man called Unc Nunkie, nicknamed the Silent One because he hardly ever talks. When he does, he generally only says one word, and sometimes two if he has to. I remember reading that James Thurber hated the character, but he wasn't too fond of the series in general, aside from the first two books. When the two run out of food, they pay a visit to Unc's old friend, the crooked magician Dr. Pipt. An accident results in both Unc and the magician's wife Margolotte being turned to marble, and Ojo goes out on a search for the ingredients needed to restore them. When the story ends, Ojo and the restored Unc Nunkie are given a small house just outside the Emerald City, and Ojo loses the "un" from his nickname. We don't see him a whole lot in later books, but we are told that he and Button-Bright become close friends. Ruth Plumly Thompson gave Button-Bright only a few brief mentions, while Ojo and Unc Nunkie made minor appearances in Kabumpo and Jack Pumpkinhead. Eventually, however, she gave Ojo his own book, giving him a new adventure and exploring his back story. Not surprisingly for a Thompson Oz book, he and Unc both turn out to be long-lost princes. I have to say Ojo is one of my favorite Thompson books, despite its unfortunate stereotypes and occasional sloppiness, partially because the author builds on what we already know from Baum. In Patchwork Girl, we're given two enigmatic references to a royal background for Unc Nunkie. Pipt introduces him to the Glass Cat as "the descendant of the former kings of the Munchkins, before this country became a part of the Land of Oz," and a later passage says that he "might have been King of the Munchkins, had not his people united with all the other countries of Oz in acknowledging Ozma as their sole ruler." It's quite possible that Thompson would have made the two royal even without this precedent, but as it is, it meshes rather nicely.

To provide the basics of the back story (and this is, in case you haven't figured it out already, full of spoilers), Ojo's grandfather once ruled over the southern Munchkin Country, with help from his brother Prince Stephen. After Ozma takes the throne of Oz, the king relinquishes control of all territory outside his own country, Seebania. I already addressed the complicated issue of Munchkin monarchy in this post, but I suppose there's no reason Stephen couldn't have eventually been King of the Munchkins if Ozma hadn't come along to limit Munchkin power. As it turns out, however, the Seebanian king's wily counselor Mooj takes control of the kingdom, somehow doing away with the king (Thompson doesn't go into detail on this point), pushing his son off a cliff, and keeping his daughter-in-law and brother as prisoners. Stephen escapes with his great-nephew Ojo, and remains silent in order to protect the two of them from Mooj.

The names of Ojo's family are an interesting matter. While Baum named Ojo himself, it was Thompson who came up with the other names. In Ojo, we learn that his parents are named Ree Alla Bad and Isomere, and Unc Nunkie's real name is Stephen. Ree Alla Bad's father remains unnamed. While "ojo" is Spanish for "eye," I tend to think that wasn't on Baum's mind when he named the character. I don't recall him using very many names based on non-English words, and "Ojo" with the J pronounced in the English fashion is similar to the names of other Ozites, like Ugu and Wiljon from Lost Princess. That doesn't mean someone couldn't connect Ojo's name to the Spanish meaning, however; in fact, I'm kind of surprised March Laumer didn't do that, since he enjoyed multilingual puns. "Ree Alla Bad" is a rather unwieldy name, and comes across as vaguely Arabic-looking. I believe Aaron Adelman proposed the idea that "Bad" is Ozish for "son of," meaning Ojo's full name would be Ojo Ree Bad, and the former King of Seebania would have been named Alla (I suppose that means he likely wouldn't have been a Muslim). In Arabic, "bad" denotes a city (and indeed, the capital of Seebania is called Shamsbad), so another possible interpretation might be that Ojo's father is from a place called Alla Bad. As for Isomere, her name was presumably a play on "isomer," a chemical term. If you've read my short story "The Red Desert of Oz," I consider Isomere to be the sister of King Ketone Aldehyde, even though I couldn't figure out a way to work it into the story itself. And compared to these names, the ordinary "Stephen" seems out of place.

Ojo of Oz

Thompson didn't really use many of Baum's human male characters. She of course had the Wizard, and Cap'n Bill got a passing mention. So, it comes as a bit of a surprise that her book for 1933 would focus on Ojo, the protagonist of Baum's The Patchwork Girl of Oz.

Ojo and Unc Nunkie are still living in their home just outside the Emerald City. Gypsies encamp outside and lure Ojo out, despite Unc Nunkie's warnings to stay away. Ojo is kidnapped, and quickly becomes friends with Snufferbox the dancing bear, and Realbad, the leader of the gypsies. Ojo is wanted by Mooj of Moojer Mountain in return for five thousand bags of sapphires. Finally, Ojo uses a silver whistle to summon a giant silver bird to blow away the other gypsies, and then himself and his friends to safety. And then, a series of misadventures, the most memorable being Realbad saving a kingdom of crystallized people from a frost dragon, only to refuse his reward so as not to be crystallized himself.

Meanwhile, ever notice how Thompson's alternating plots don't really stick to the same timeline? Ah, well... Meanwhile, Unc Nunkie tells Ozma about Ojo's disappearance, and Dorothy, Scraps, and the Cowardly Lion decide to look for him. They decide to use the Magic Picture and a Wishing Pill to give them a head start, when Scraps speaks too quickly and wishes them "in that grumpy forest this very minute!" A few misadventures, and they wind up meeting Mooj on Moojer Mountain.

Ozma, the Wizard, Unc Nunkie, and the Scarecrow go to Glinda's to see if the Book of Records has any information about Ojo, but it's being cryptic again...

MEANWHILE, back to the real story! After another series of adventures, Ojo and Snuffer become separated from Realbad in a land of unicorns. Deciding that they could easily find their way to the Emerald City from the top of a mountain, they get a lift from X. Pando, the Elevator Man, who will carry people to the top of the mountain, while his feet remain on the ground. (Thompson isn't clear if he flies up, and it's actually his shoes on the ground his pant legs stretching, or if his legs were elastic.) However, it turns out this is Moojer Mountain, and Mooj catches Ojo and "rewards" Snuffer with the promised sapphires, but Snuffer would rather have his friend back.

Realbad arrives on a unicorn and goes to face Mooj, who reveals that Realbad is Ojo's father, and Realbad himself is King of Seebania, but as he has broken his word, his wife and child will now be made to disappear. As Mooj hurries to Seebania, Ozma, the Wizard, Unc Nunkie, and the Scarecrow arrive on the scene. Dorothy's rescue party has been turned into clocks (they can all talk), so all hurry to Seebania, by means of the Wizard's flying pills, the enchanted clocks being carried.

In Seebania's capital of Shamsbad, Mooj is turned into a sparrow by Ozma, who then restores Dorothy and her friends. Realbad, or Rea Alla Bad, reveals how Mooj took over Seebania and attempted to kill Rea, who ran off with the gypsies. Unc Nunkie, speaking in full sentences, reveals how he took Ojo to raise him in solitude and safety. Rea's wife Isomere is restored to him, and they all go to celebrate in the old bandits' cave, before Rea and Isomere, along with Ojo and Unc Nunkie (who Thompson gives the sadly ordinary name "Stephen"), take the throne of Seebania.

Mooj's final punishment is one of the most outlandish in all the Oz books: he is transformed into a drop of water in the Nonestic Ocean. This is because he is too dangerous to leave in a conscious form, but it does seem a bit extreme. If, for any reason, Ozma undid this, could she retrieve that one drop of water? Why not transform him into an inanimate object? Or wipe his memory with the Water of Oblivion? Or even put him into an enchanted sleep or trance?

Anyways, is Ojo a good Oz book? Yeah, it's fun to read, but it did suffer from Thompson revealing royalty in a previously non-royal character, as we know already she was wont to do. Dorothy's rescue party, as fun as traveling with Scraps is, really adds little to the story.

Although Thompson didn't really tightly weave her stories together, it is when her characters are adventuring that she is at her strongest. And though she did get repetitive, for some reason, her stories were fun to read. And this book did have a bit of adventure!

So, go ahead, read Ojo of Oz for yourself!