Merry Go Round in Oz

Oz Continued #40

by Eloise Jarvis McGraw, Dick Martin (Illustrator)

Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion, and Robin Brown, a young boy from Oregon, join old and new friends on a magical quest to solve a mystery.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Childrens, Classics, Juvenile

313 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Eloise Jarvis McGraw was an author of children's books. She was awarded the Newbery Honor three times in three different decades, for her novels Moccasin Trail (1952), The Golden Goblet (1962), and The Moorchild (1997). A Really Weird Summer (1977) won an Edgar Award for Best Juvenile Mystery from the Mystery Writers of America. McGraw had a very strong interest in history, and among the many books she wrote for children are Greensleeves, Pharaoh, The Seventeenth Swap, and Mara, Daughter of the Nile.

McGraw also contributed to the Oz series started by L. Frank Baum, writing with her daughter Lauren Lynn McGraw (Wagner) Merry Go Round in Oz (the last of the Oz books issued by Baum's publisher) and The Forbidden Fountain of Oz, and later writing The Rundelstone of Oz on her own. The actual writing of the books was done entirely by Eloise; Lauren made story contributions significant enough for Eloise to assign her co-authorship credit.

She lived for many years in Portland, Oregon before dying in late 2000 of "complications of cancer".

McGraw was married to William Corbin McGraw, who died in 1999. They had two children, Peter and Lauren.

-Wikipedia

Reviews

[Marietta · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read this book so many times since I was a kid - love it every time! And the illustrations are wonderful.

[Earth&Silver · Rating 4 out of 5]

I probably would not have been QUITE as fond of this book if this was actually my first time through. But I had read it before - repeatedly - as a child, in a library which has since closed down, and I've been looking for a copy to revisit it for YEARS. And opening it up again was like coming home.

I think Eloise McGraw struck a pretty reasonable balance between the whimsical style of the Oz books and her natural writing style. The plot threads came together nicely, some of the descriptions were Delicious, Flitter is excessively cute (there is probably a reason I am still periodically sketching him after more than a decade), and Robin? Robin's one of mine. I think I'd adopted the kid a long time ago and forgot how much I missed him with his joy and his wonder and his worry, his love of horses and daydreams of knight-errantry. I strongly suspect that intro with the Merry-Go-Round influenced a number of kid-me's daydreams.

Yes it was rather silly as well, but if you can't take a bit of silliness, why read in the Oz setting?

[Fraser Sherman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of the "famous forty" canonical Oz books, this is easily the best of the post-Baum books. McGraw's a much stronger plotter than most of the Oz writers and never lets the book just turn into a journey from oddball kingdom to oddball kingdom (though she has those — the prissy little kids of Good Children Land are a hoot).
This starts out with three plot strands. The page boy Fess leads a party out of the knightly kingdom of Halidom to recover three lost magical McGuffins. Robin, a boy from Oregon, arrives in Oz riding a merry-g0-round horse, which of course comes to life (it's Oz. That stuff happens a lot). And finally Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion (McGraw writes him well, with a worldly resignation about getting stuck in yet another adventure) visit the Easter Bunny but get lost on the way home. Need I say all the travelers eventually meet up and share adventures?
I'm glad I revisited this one.

[David Sheward · Rating 4 out of 5]

This 40th Oz book offers the most detailed depiction of a segment of the Oz population, a kingdom of knights and jousting. The plotting is fairly good, and superior to John R. Neil's haphazard adventures in The Wonder City of Oz and Scalawagons in Oz. Three separate parties (a lost innocent from the outside world riding a merry-go-round horse come to life, a royal party from the Renaissance Faire kingdom and Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion, straying from a visit to the Easter Bunny) eventually join up to retrieve three stolen magical rings. The villains aren't particularly menacing. The worst that happens to the adventurers is being beset by a town of "good children" and their nannies who force them to take naps and eat boiled parsnips.

[JHM · Rating 4 out of 5]

I checked this out of the library when I was in early elementary school (sometime between 1970 and 1974), and even now I remember it fondly. It was one of my favorite Oz books and one of the most memorable. For years afterward, when I rode a merry-go-round I would hope that it would start spinning faster and send me off to Oz.

[Adaline Griffiths · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book there are two main parties. A foster boy named Robin with a broken merry-go-round horse and him unexpectedly find themselves in OZ. Asking directions, Robin and Merry set off for the Emerald City. But they find trouble ahead-will they be able to escape their circle prison? Meanwhile Fess is a young boy training to be a knight in Halidom. When the 3 national treasure's are stolen the Halidom population is hysterical. Without the only remaining item they won't be able to do anything. So Fess steps off with Prince Gules, the Unicorn, his flittermouse and a proud horse called Fred. Will the group be able to find the stolen rings before it is too late? Will Robin and Merry escape their own prison? I rate this book 4 out of 5 stars.

[hpboy13 · Rating 5 out of 5]

As clever, charming, and fun as any of the original Oz books, this one is a real gem! I loved reading it!

ETA 2018: Merry Go Round in Oz is, far and away, the best post-Baum Oz book. The story is both elegant and engrossing. The characters are both well-developed and sympathetic – within a paragraph of meeting Robin, you want to give him a hug. The new fantastical elements and little kingdoms fit in perfectly with Baum’s Oz, a superb blend of whimsy and satire. And for lots of bonus points, the ultimate villain is the patriarchy.

[Anne · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found the prose clunky and the whimsy more than a little strained. I got the impression that the author was trying to do something that didn't come naturally to her. I have very much liked some of McGraw's other books, so I'd have been interested to see what she could do with Oz a bit more in that direction.

It's possible that I'd have liked this a lot better if I'd happened on it when I was younger. I'm almost fifty now, and I have different expectations than I did at, say, age ten.