The wizard of the Emerald City. Urfin Jus and his wooden soldiers

Волшебник Изумрудного города #1-2

by Alexander Volkov

This book contains translations into English of the first two Oz-inspired "Magic Land" novels by Russian author Alexander Volkov. In the first story, Ellie, a little girl from Kansas, is blown by a tornado to Magic Land, where she learns that the best things in the world are friendship and mutual assistance. In the second story, Ellie returns to Magic Land to fight an evil ruler. New edition contains revised Afterword, an article comparing the 1939 and 1959 versions of WIZARD, and a select bibliography of Volkov's other works.

Genres: Fantasy, Childrens, Russia, Fiction

360 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Alexander Volkov (Александр Волков) wrote several historical novels, but is mostly remembered for a series of children's books based on L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
The first of these books, The Wizard of the Emerald City, is a loose translation of the first Oz book, with chapters added, altered, or omitted, some names changed (for example, Dorothy becomes "Ellie" and Oz is renamed "Magic Land"), and several characters given personal names instead of generic ones.

First published in 1939 in the Soviet Union, the book became quite popular; and in the 1960s Volkov also wrote his own sequels to the story. From 1963 to 1970, four more books in the series were published, with the sixth and final story published posthumously in 1982.

Associated Names:
Александр Волков - Russian
Alexander Wolkow - German

Reviews

[Olga Goa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing and the most favourite book of my childhood!
The characters are so amazing and lovely, dare to say more vivid than in Frank Baum's book. Sorry for the honesty but I feel so.
I would like to reread it again. Elly is so lovely as Lion and many others.
The best. Still have good memories about that!

[Nataly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This series of book was the first one which got me aquainted with fantasy and science-fiction. That's how I've got stuck with it.

[Catya (LizBenAt) · Rating 5 out of 5]

My mum used to read this book and the sequels to me and I fell in love with this world, the magic and the friendship long long before I ever heard of Baum.
I've since read Baum's Oz, but it never reached me quite in the same way.
Awesome book ;)
and only the first is really a re-telling of Baum's story.

[Tim O'neill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wizard is good; I missed the China Country but I did enjoy the additional characterization. Baum's Land of Oz is my favorite Oz book, but Urfin Jus was also a fine sequel, with a more satisfyïng plot than any but the first three of Baum's Oz books.