John Dough And The Cherub

by L. Frank Baum

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Classics, Childrens, Adventure, Queer, Novels

Paperback

First published January 1, 1906

About the author

also wrote under the names:
* Edith van Dyne,
* Floyd Akers,
* Schuyler Staunton,
* John Estes Cooke,
* Suzanne Metcalf,
* Laura Bancroft,
* Louis F. Baum,
* Captain Hugh Fitzgerald

Lyman Frank Baum was an American author best known for his children's fantasy books, particularly The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, part of a series. In addition to the 14 Oz books, Baum penned 41 other novels (not including four lost, unpublished novels), 83 short stories, over 200 poems, and at least 42 scripts. He made numerous attempts to bring his works to the stage and screen; the 1939 adaptation of the first Oz book became a landmark of 20th-century cinema.
Born and raised in Chittenango, New York, Baum moved west after an unsuccessful stint as a theater producer and playwright. He and his wife opened a store in South Dakota and he edited and published a newspaper. They then moved to Chicago, where he worked as a newspaper reporter and published children's literature, coming out with the first Oz book in 1900. While continuing his writing, among his final projects he sought to establish a film studio focused on children's films in Los Angeles, California.
His works anticipated such later commonplaces as television, augmented reality, laptop computers (The Master Key), wireless telephones (Tik-Tok of Oz), women in high-risk and action-heavy occupations (Mary Louise in the Country), and the ubiquity of advertising on clothing (Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work).

Reviews

[itchy · Rating 4 out of 5]

ocr:
p3: There were trays of French candies, too; and because all the goods were fresh and wholesome the bakery was w r ell patronized and did a thriving business.

p7: But for a time 1 have escaped them.

p9: Now, however, when she came back into her room and gazed at the two flasks upon her table, she had no idea which one was of gold and which of silver r for the weakness of her eyes prevented her from telling them apart by means of their color.

p17: He knew no tune whatever, but he could whistle, and so he managed to express an erratic mixture of notes that would have made Herr Wagner proud. I

p19: "...Come inside while I get a knifes"

p28: "I told you so! ' growled the Fresh-Air Fiend, pulling out the lance hastily."Tell me, John Dough, are you dead, or are you just dying?'
*There are dozens more errors of this pattern.

p29: "...I don't understand why they license the thing"

p38: "Aren't they nice?' 1 asked the kinglet, looking after them.

p53: "...There is no doubt you were very unwise to get so broken up; but there is nothing left for the Royal Executioner to do."^

p57: "Then get another"

p72: "...There's no need to worry until the time^ comes, anyhow."

p84: When Chick managed to get a. full view of the woman she was seen to be nearly as round as an apple in form, with an apple's rosy cheeks, and with cute corkscrew curls of an iron-gray color running from her ears down to her neck.

p85: The ^bear was fat and of monstrous size, and its color was a rich brown.

p86: "Well, the principal reason is that I'm made of rubber,"^said the bear.

p88: Curling himself into a ball, the great bear rolled his body down the hill, speeding faster every moment, until he struck the flat rock at the bottoms Then he bounded high into the air (in the same way that a rubber ball does when thrown down upon a hard pavement"), and made a graceful backward curve until he reached the top of the hill again, where he bounced up and down a few time, and then stood upright and bowed before the gingerbread man and the gleeful Cherub--who was rapturously delighted by the performance.

p90: "...Remember, sir, that when I have eaten you I shall gain for myself the priceless powers of that Great Elixir contained in your gingerbread, and will thus become the most powerful and most intelligent man in the world/ besides living forever!..."

p90: But in the recent encounter with Black Ooboo the gingerbread man had learned how powerful the Elixir made him; so he did not run this time from the Arab, but avoided the thrust of the knife and caught the body of All Dubh in a strong clasp.

p94: "How is the Princess today?
"She's worse," answered Chick.

p97: "I might have given those coat tails to the Princess, and now this silly bird has eaten them up!
"I said you were a chump!" remarked the macaw, winking, and then laughing again.

p102: The King promised to meet us at the waterfall; but he will not allow me to enter, because I am a .rabbit, so you must go in alone.

p102: John picked up a' great wooden club that lay near their path, and while Chick and the Princess hurried after the rabbit he stopped and hurled it toward the Mifkets.

p111: "Are we not to go with the Princess?' 1 asked the gingerbread man.

It's not Oz, but it's still a hoot. Never did I imagine the gingerbread man to look like that.

[K · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not one of Baum's best, and kind of a chore to get through by the end. It's long, too - modern publishing houses would've definitely chopped a good hundred pages out of it, and the truth is nothing would've really been lost in the process.

I was kind of intrigued by the idea of "Chick the Cherub," a child of androgynous appearance whose gender is specifically not stated at any point, but unfortunately that's as interesting as this character gets.

That whole question - "is Chick a boy or a girl?" - was used heavily in the marketing campaigns leading up to the book's publication, and there were quite a few cash prizes for children who bought the book, tore out the slip inside, and mailed back their best guess. A successful gimmick, probably? It does prove that it's actually very easy to write a genderless character throughout an entire book; while the final line poses the question meant to drive more sales, Chick simply exists for the rest of the narrative, without having to be described in any particularly masculine or feminine terms.

Unfortunately, there was an entirely separate problem, where Baum failed to make Chick memorable or even very likable. Their best scenes were early on, in their interactions with the funniest and most dynamic character of the entire book, the weird little king from the Island of Phreex ("Freaks"). I really did enjoy all his throne room scenes, and I was amused, at least initially, by the beautiful, innocent-looking lady who desperately wanted to be an executioner and chop off some heads, if the king would just follow through on his threats.

Unfortunately, the initial amusement there got muddied by extremely inconsistent characterization - once she finally got the chance to execute someone for real, she wept and turned back into a stereotypically pretty, soft-hearted girl, when the entire point of her character was that her appearance was entirely at odds with her bloodthirsty nature. This complete character reversal was also one of several scenes where racism hit the narrative pretty hard, making the book more difficult to enjoy.

It's hard for me, though, to pinpoint anything that really makes this one a worthwhile read. There were some moments of amusement, although Baum was leaning much too heavily on puns. And his immense creativity kind of failed this time around; most of the settings and characters were dull and spiritless. I did like the coconut-headed Mifkets, who also had a decently-written king, but they didn't take up nearly enough of the action to make them feel like worthwhile antagonists.

And as for a compelling protagonist...well. There are two title characters, and neither of them is great.

Baum's publisher had actually insisted that he rewrite his manuscript to include a human child, and after some resistance, Baum agreed...and perhaps as a result, Chick adds very little to the narrative. It's never explained why they were on the Island of Phreex to begin with, other than the fact that they were supposedly the first Incubator Baby. Where were their parents, then? How did they get to the island? Why do they only eat oatmeal and cream? Why is their personality endlessly cheerful and full of careless laughter with essentially no variation or depth?

It's unfair to criticize Chick too much, though, because the other main character, John Dough, is dreadfully flat. Or should I say...stale.

At least Chick has some natural intelligence and bravery. John Dough, a full-size gingerbread man who was accidentally brought to life by a magical elixir, spends the entire book bumbling from place to place without ever taking any real ownership over his actions. I'm not sure what the book looked like before Chick was written in, because as it stands, John isn't the one getting himself out of any of their scrapes. He just gets flung from island to island, meeting an array of characters who try to eat him, before escaping on to the next one.

The introduction mentions that Baum was, in all likelihood, hoping to turn this into a stage play, which does help to explain the completely disconnected narrative and huge assortment of eye-catching, flash-in-the-pan characters. Entire chapters could've easily been cut without disrupting the narrative at all; while the pirates were particularly pointless, the same could be said of the flamingos, the fairy beavers, the society of rich storytellers...

In The Wizard of Oz, readers travel through some wildly inventive landscapes and strange little towns, but everything is held together by Dorothy and her companions, and the heartfelt motivations that drive each of them as they struggle to reach a specific destination.

John Dough actually says, in the final chapters, that he doesn't care where he ends up, and just gets dropped by the flamingos on another island where he conveniently becomes the ruler. Chick doesn't particularly care, either, and is just along for the fun of it all, I guess. And the rubber bear, who'd at least had some attachment to the "Princess" of his initial island, also ends up accompanying them just because he has nothing better to do once she goes off with her family.

If your main characters are this shallow, there's nothing to make your readers care about them or their story, and that's why it drags on so pointlessly.

Character after character gets added and then discarded, and any emotional impact was diluted as a result. The whole bit with the sickly Princess (whose existence on this island with her parents wasn't explained and didn't make sense, either) was set up to give John Dough a little bit of a hero arc, since eating some of his Elixir-saturated gingerbread flesh would restore her health. Great! Here's where he can start to truly develop a heart, or a soul, of his own, and show what kind of a (gingerbread) man he is!

Except...both Chick and the rubber bear just berate him and threaten to never talk to him again if he doesn't feed the "Princess" a part of his body. It's uncomfortable, honestly.

It makes some sense for the bear to be upset, since he's only just met John Dough and has been fond of the girl for a while, but Chick just met this person and is mad at their companion for refusing to lop off a body part to feed her? None of them even know why she's sick to begin with, and they don't attempt to explore any other options to help her, even though there's an entire set of powerful fairies living on the island with them.

The ultimate decision doesn't really seem like John's at all. And since he gets a perfect new gingerbread hand at the end of the story, the lesson in selflessness doesn't even last.

There were other bits I found confusing, like most of the characters not actually being able to communicate with each other. Only John Dough, thanks to the Elixir that gave him knowledge as well as life, can speak every language. This gives him some importance, I guess, since he alone can easily converse with the humans, the rabbits, the fairy beavers, the flamingos, the rubber bear, the Mifkets, etc. But that leaves weird story gaps, like the rabbits knowing things they wouldn't be able to if they can't speak any other language, and the bear and the human Princess being best friends, and just...well, it all gets too tiring to keep listing out.

This was a pretty flimsy book, and the gaps show.

It's weirdly violent, too; John Dough gets his fingers bitten off and eaten, one by one, and gets chopped into 8 pieces by the fairy beavers for no real reason (why didn't they just shove HIM in a glass submarine like the Princess), and in general spends most of his time crumbling to bits in distressing ways. He's insubstantial both in personality and in body, and he really could not hold his own story together.

I'd call this one of Baum's duds. An experiment that, like those of the inventors on the Island of Phreex, ultimately didn't work at all.

[Gabrian · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the freshest authors of 2022! This book is essentially Angela’s Ashes for the zoomer generation.

[Eleanor Toland · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun if lightweight story, the literary equivalent of a Saturday morning cartoon, John Dough and the Cherub is marred by unfortunate levels of racism, which is disappointing in that L. Frank Baum was often such a progressive author in other aspects. A evil Arabic sorcerer loans a flask of the elixir of life to a baker's wife to stop it falling into the wrong hands: unfortunately the woman is colour-blind and accidentally pours the whole lot into a six-foot novelty gingerbread man who promptly comes to life and runs away, in an echo of an old nursery rhyme. Pursued by the sorcerer, who wants to eat him to gain the power of immortality, and children, who want to eat him because he's made of cake, John Dough and his sidekick the Cherub flee through a variety of bizarre scenarios including an encounter with "the King of Fairy Beavers", a schoolgirl executioner and a child king who resembles a G-rated version of Joffrey Baratheon.

Personally I found the most notable aspect of the story to be the character of the Cherub, who might well be the earliest non-binary character in children's fiction. The Cherub is referred to by the pronoun "it" and wears androgynous clothes. According to the introduction, Baum was pressured by the publisher into making the Cherub either a boy or a girl, and a competition was run asking children to decide the character's gender. Two entries tied for first place, one declaring the Cherub a boy, the other declaring it a girl.

[Forked Radish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not nearly as racist as touted 😒, but there are fairy beavers, a para-rubber bear, an incubator baby, a real "sport", retired pirates—Cab drivers or real estate agents? Fill in your own _____. Even a talking macaw. Believe it or don't 😃.

[LJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like Baum's more famous stories, this is a children's fantasy filled with his crazy imagination and although it isn't really a comedy there are glimpses of his wit. However, also like his more famous stories, there isn't that much plot. It's basically just a series of random stuff filled with bizarre characters.

John Dough is a lifesize gingerbread man accidentally brought to life by a magic elixir. He quickly discovers that life is dangerous if you are made of an edible material. The rest of the story is simply him escaping one dangerous place and arriving at another. He has an ally, Chick the world's first Incubator Baby (the 'cherub' of the title). It's never made clear what that actually means but Chick has no family. Chick also doesn't have a great deal of personality, being always cheerful and plucky, which gets a bit tedious. Chick's defining trait seems to be talking in slang, which I guess is supposed to be funny. The trouble is, our heroes never solve their problems or defeat their foes. They just escape them. Then it's on to the next wacky situation. John has a little bit more personality than Chick, being often fairly nervous, and he is basically likeable, but there just isn't enough of a pull to really care about the characters or story.

The reason I sought this book out is because it is apparently one of the very few children's books in existence to feature an agender character (Chick). That's cool.

Anyway, it's fine. The writing is good, and it's very imaginative, but it is just a shaggy dog tale I guess.

Note on the edition: the cover is disappointingly completely blank apart from the title, but inside is reproduced exactly like the original text complete with pictures. Some of the pictures have a printing issue but I don't know if that was the case in the original.

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun book with a typical Baum plot. Our main characters, John Dough the Gingerbread Man and Chick the Cherub the Incubator Baby, go on adventures, meet many odd and interesting folk, and overcome all obstacles with a mixture of goodheartedness, ingenuity, and pluck. There are plenty of adversaries as well, most of whom would like to snack on John Dough. A rather boring princess makes a brief appearance, but Baum soon sends her off in a glass submarine powered by fairy beavers. There is a racist depiction of an Arab villain, but it is a fairly small part of the book.

This is another Baum book in which he plays with gender, along with The Land of Oz and The Enchanted Island of Yew. We never do find out if Chick is a boy or girl, and I think Baum is trying to make a point here. Chick is supremely self-confident, and as an incubator baby, has no family ties, and can ignore pressure to be anything other than Chick the Cherub. Chick is my favorite Baum kid, closely followed by Dorothy, another bold and parentless adventurer.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun little fantasy adventure from the same author as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. This story takes a different spin on the classic tale of the Gingerbread Man, by having a life sized confection brought to life through an accident involving an ancient magical elixir. From there, the titular John Dough has adventures in several different domains, running afoul of some of the inhabitants and being chased by the owner of the elixir. Dough’s steadfast companion is Chick the Cherub, who has their own unique origin. A classic fairy story, with many of the trademark unique beings that Baum is well-known for. The conclusion is ridiculously quick and wraps things up just a little too perfectly however.

[Sean Harding · Rating 3 out of 5]

Baum Free #15
Old Frankie was a bit of a weirdo really, and this one, old gingerbread man running around the place, lots of banging on and continually worried about getting damp and falling apart.
Some of the characters will apparently appear in later Oz books so a lot of his books do belong in the same universe which is good.
On we go to the next one!

[Christie Crook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such fun!

This is yet another fun adventure story. Written about a most unusual character and his many adventures. He is mentioned in the OZ books as he comes to visit OZ in the series. This is a sort of history about him.

[Christie Peters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of Fun with a good portion of logical nonsense!

[Celia T]

L. Frank Baum creates some fun and interesting new genders but is also more racist than I've ever seen him be before. swings and roundabouts I guess

[Lydia Batchelor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Frankenstein's monster goes to the island of misfit toys, meets an evil guy, William Shakespeare, and a guy who thinks umbrellas are dumb...

Yeah I gave up lol

[Lumberland · Rating 2 out of 5]

John Dough and the Cherub was fun enough, but not as good as any of the work Baum did in his Oz series. It's a fun fairy story, but has not held up to the test of time. While the situation were inventive, none of the characters were compelling, and it was hard to root for the protagonists due to their lack of unique personalities (Chick maybe being the exception, but they rarely move the plot forward). The racism that bogs this story down is also pretty pervasive, uncomfortable, and hard to get past as a reader.

The most interesting qualities of this book were the clear SFF ideas that, in the 119 years since it was written, are now part of our everyday reality. Genderless people, babies kept alive in incubators, flying machines controlled by buttons, and artificially created diamonds simply are not the wonders they were in 1906, which actually makes this book more compelling in 2025 as readers can appreciate the fantastical aspects of their everyday reality.

[Orion · Rating 5 out of 5]

Published in 2008 by Hungry Tiger, a press that publishes quality editions of the works of L. Frank Baum, this book brings together L. Frank Baum's original 1906 text and all of John R. Neill's original illustrations with a new 13 page foreword by J. L. Bell, editor of the International Wizard of Oz Club's magazine Oziana. Also included is a one page note on the making of this new edition by David Maxine of Hungry Tiger Press. This is a loving recreation of a book that, while in the Public Domain, has been out of print for a long time.

J. L. Bell tells us in the foreword that the book was originally commissioned for serialization by Ladies' Home Journal, the largest subscription magazine in the world at the time. However, when Baum submitted his first four chapters based on a children's story "The Gingerbread Boy" about a pastry that comes to life and runs away rather than be eaten by everyone he meets, the editor decided to reject the story. The story published in St. Nicholas Magazine in 1875 comes to an abrupt end when the pastry is eaten by a fox.

While the original story does not explain how the gingerbread comes to life, Baum has an Arab named Ali Dubh who is being pursued by three other Arabs, visit an American bake shop in his neighborhood and ask the baker's wife to hide a golden flask that contains The Great Elixir, the Water of Life, that his pursuers seek. In return he offers her a silver flask that will cure her rheumatism. The woman mixes up the two flasks and pours the Water of Life into a large bowl of water which her husband, unaware of its significance, uses to fashion a life-sized gingerbread man. Infused with The Great Elixir, the baker's creation that he named John Dough comes to life and begins to stroll through the town.

While all who meet him think of him as food, John Dough sees himself as a living being with a life of his own. This creates even more existential conflict when it becomes obvious to him and others that anyone who does eat him will not only fill their stomach but gain the benefits of the Water of Life and become stronger and more vibrant. Ali Dubh pays the baker for the gingerbread man and starts off in pursuit of his property. To escape capture John Dough catches a ride on a 4th of July rocket and lands days later on the Isle of Phreex in what Baum will in a a later book call the Nonestic Ocean. It is the body of water that surrounds the land that contains his fairyland of Oz.

When John Dough lands on the Isle of Phreex, a place inhabited by unusual people, it appears he has found a home where he can be accepted and makes friends with Chick the Cherub, an Incubator Baby who has grown up on the isle without parents. No one seems to know Chick's gender making the Cherub gender queer in today's terminology, a character that does not conform to either male or female gender identification. J. L. Bell in the foreword tells of a contest where the publisher would reward the reader who submitted the best reason Chick was a boy or a girl.

However, John and Chick are not safe and Ali Dubh is in hot pursuit. Does John Dough get eaten or allow himself to be eaten? Can you guess Chick's gender? All the while Baum has his characters on an island hopping adventure as they seek safety and a home. This book has many features of his American fairytale series of stories, where he tries to bring the magic of fairytales to everyday American settings, and it has the features of a minor Oz story in that it also takes place in the magical lands surrounding Oz, but without any of the main Ozian characters. I like it because it raises ethical questions about owning and eating living creatures and takes a refreshing look at gender identity. The book will appeal to Baum's fans and deserves reading because of the issues it addresses.

[Kat · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun read, although with some racist aspects. The pace was fast, the characters were engaging, and it wasn't until the last line that I realized that Chick's gender was never defined, which is pretty clever writing. The three leads appear as guests at Ozma's birthday party in The Road to Oz.

[Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Dough is one of Baum's better non-Oz books. The plot is pretty random but the fun, humour and invention are well in evidence and the illustrations are by John R. Neill. There's rather more funny foreigners, type of casual racism than in the Oz books, but at it's best the book is as enjoyable as an Oz book.

[David Hanig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting example

This is An interesting example of the authors early work. It might be of scholarly interest, but it is not an example of his best work. The story and bowls and then arrives at a final destination that feels contrived and in adequate