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Oz #8-14
The Oz Chronicles: Volume 2
Included in this two-volume set are the following stories:
Volume 1
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,
The Marvelous Land of Oz,
Ozma of Oz,
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz,
The Road to Oz,
The Emerald City of Oz,
The Patchwork Girl of Oz,
Little Wizard Stories of Oz,
Volume 2
Tik-Tok of Oz,
The Scarecrow of Oz,
Rinkitink in Oz,
The Lost Princess of Oz,
The Tin Woodman of Oz,
The Magic of Oz,
Glinda of Oz.
Volume 1
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,
The Marvelous Land of Oz,
Ozma of Oz,
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz,
The Road to Oz,
The Emerald City of Oz,
The Patchwork Girl of Oz,
Little Wizard Stories of Oz,
Volume 2
Tik-Tok of Oz,
The Scarecrow of Oz,
Rinkitink in Oz,
The Lost Princess of Oz,
The Tin Woodman of Oz,
The Magic of Oz,
Glinda of Oz.
657 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2003
6 people are currently reading
220 people want to read
About the author
L. Frank Baum
3,223 books2,780 followersalso 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 In addition to the 14 Oz books, Baum penned 41 other novels (not including four lost, unpublished novels), 83 short stories, over 200 poems, and at least 42 scripts.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).
* 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).
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 2, 2018
This volume is riddled with story inconsistencies, a common fault in Mr. Baum’s Oz tales. In Tik-Tok of Oz (the 8th book), Shaggy Man reunites with Polychrome, the Rainbow’s daughter. They first encountered each other in The Road to Oz (the 5th book). But in Tik-Tok of Oz they act as if they’re both strangers to each other. Also, Shaggy Man’s Love Magnet used to make people love him by the mere fact of being in his presence while he had it in his pocket. In Tik-Tok of Oz, Shaggy Man must hold it up to people’s view; people have to lay eyes on it before feeling its influence.
In The Scarecrow of Oz (the 9th book), Cap’n Bill Wheedles meets the Tin Woodman for the first time and the latter is written as “all made of tin, even to his heart”. In yet another novel, the heart is stated to be velvet. Both statements directly contradict the ending of the very first novel when the humbug Wizard gives Nick Chopper a silk heart stuffed with sawdust.
Baum even miswrites from one page to the next. In The Tin Woodman of Oz (the 12th book), Tommy Kwikstep says that he was carrying medicine when he made a thoughtless wish that gave him 20 legs. After the wish is reversed, he says he’s going to deliver the note he’s been carrying ever since the witch or fairy granted his foolish desire. Which is it? Medicine or note?
In The Magic of Oz (the 13th book), the Glass Cat once more reappears. At the end of The Patchwork Girl of Oz (the 7th book), the Wizard made her brains transparent so as to render her modest and well behaved in disposition. But, in the 13th book, she is once again vain and inordinately proud of her flashing pink brains, which can be seen clearly, a fact she points out to almost everyone she meets.
The uneven quality of the Oz stories continues to manifest itself in this volume. Tik-Tok of Oz has an ineffectual protagonist in the title. Tik-Tok is only a mechanical man, not alive like the Scarecrow or the Tin Woodsman. Because he is merely logical and without feeling, he has all the personality of a kitchen ladle. He winds down and has to be continually rewound. He doesn’t walk well on rocky ground and makes pratfalls in a couple of passages. As the only soldier in Queen Ann’s army, he is promptly captured and rescue falls to that of the living people around him while he remains inert and immobile. He is reduced to being a damsel-in-distress character and thus is a poor choice as a major character.
The Scarecrow of Oz proves to be one of the disappointing entries in the series. Given the title, one would presume that the Scarecrow has a large role to play. But he doesn’t appear until the 13th chapter! He proves a pathetic excuse for a hero, too, getting captured when he tells a king to surrender and abdicate his throne. When he’s nearly burnt at the stake, he’s rescued by a bunch of flying Orks. The only good he does is to shrink the witch Blinkie, get her to reverse spells on Cap’n Bill and Princess Gloria and strip the witch of her powers, acts that could have been accomplished by Glinda or the Wizard himself.
Before we read about him, however, we are exposed once more to Button-Bright, one of the most boring and one-dimensional recurring characters in the Oz novels. First seen in The Road to Oz, Button-Bright was a cute little boy who did little except emote. But now he has no emotional affect at all, seemingly content to eat, sleep and make dull, pragmatic statements about whatever’s happening around him. He declines to think because it makes him tired and he’s found little gain comes of it. He has more conversation but fewer dispositions and his main attribute is that he’s always getting lost but someone always finds him again.
Trot and Cap’n Bill’s adventures in The Scarecrow of Oz begin much like the Shaggy Man’s in The Road to Oz. The story opens with Trot and Cap’n Bill stranded on an island with no indication of where they came from, how they got there or why they went there in the first place. It’s vexing reading stories like that; you always wonder what kind of backstory you’re missing.
King Rinkitink is another irritating Baum fabrication. (Another is Cayke the Cookie Cook, a maudlin Winkie woman who spends most of her time moaning over the loss of her enchanted dishpan.) Rinkitink is a lazy bum and has run away from his kingdom because he hates performing his duties as a ruler. He’s prone to bouts of facetious laughter, rhymes and song and so obese walking for any length of time tires him. He’s a moronic creature of appetite and little agency unless he’s being prodded to action. It doesn’t make any sense that it’s his name in the title of Rinkitink in Oz (the 10th book), when it’s Prince Inga who is the undoubted hero of it.
As a rare male protagonist of Oz, Prince Inga proves himself a resourceful, intelligent, clever, redoubtable and stalwart presence. He needs to be; this is an atypical Oz story that features real violence, warfare, destruction and the horrors of enslavement. The Winkies declared themselves to have been enslaved by the Wicked Witch of the West in the first Oz book. But we never see the real suffering that slavery entails until we read Rinkitink in Oz.
There have been girl fighters in Oz but they are presented as being rather ineffectual and silly. Queen Ann’s attempts to rule other lands are crippled from the start by a tiny squadron composed mainly of one soldier and cowardly generals. She also doesn’t really want to hurt people and would prefer that her opponents merely surrender. Captain Jinjur and her girl army are armed with nothing more lethal than knitting needles.
The warriors of Regos and Coregos are of a different stripe. They carry swords, spears and battle-axes. In one bold assault, they raid the island of Pingaree, looting it of its treasures, enslaving its people and tearing down all of its buildings.
It’s up to young Prince Inga to mount a rescue armed with nothing more than his cleverness, three magical pearls, the overweight lard-bottom and Rinkitink’s irascible talking goat Bilbil. After a series of adventures, Inga frees everyone from bondage by King Gos and Queen Cor. But he can’t free his parents from the Nome King Kaliko. It lies up to Dorothy Gale to do so.
Here is where Mr. Baum’s imagination fails him. I have no doubt that Dorothy is a character of courage, kindness, decency, intelligence and loyalty. But she pops into this story when she is without active agency for most of it, appearing via Magic Carpet after reading in Glinda’s Great Book of Records about Inga’s predicament in the nome kingdom. She threatens Kaliko with eggs unless he releases the King and Queen of Pingaree and that’s that. Everyone is freed and they all go back to the Emerald City for a royal banquet.
Using Dorothy in such a fashion cheapens Inga’s own efforts and reduces her to being a deus ex machina. It’s an awkward ending and it’s not the first time Ozma, the Wizard, Dorothy or some other Oz denizen is yanked into a story to provide magical rescue.
Dorothy, Ozma and Glinda frequently check in on matters going on in Oz, either through a Magic Picture or Great Book. But they don’t bring themselves to interfere unless absolutely necessary. Does this allow their subjects free action, albeit under an unsettling régime surveillance? Yes, it does. Does it mean that they lend extraordinary effort only under extraordinary trials? Yes, it does. Is either of these good things? Hmmm. When I consider the problem, I must say I’m of two minds of the matter. On the one hand, it might be considered efficient leadership. On the other hand, it’s a lousy plot device.
Consider the very first Oz novel. Dorothy lands in an enchanted world possessing no magic or magical friends of any sort. She makes friends and allies and they solve problems without sorcery or wizardry. After Dorothy accidentally kills the Wicked Witch of the West with a bucket of ordinary water, she returns to the Great and Powerful Oz…to discover that he’s a con man without any real power. She’s told to go to Glinda the Good who informs her that the silver slippers she’s worn this entire time are capable of taking her back home and she returns home, losing the slippers in the process.
Save for using a Golden Cap to command the Flying Monkeys, Dorothy works without magical aid only the stalwart support of her friends. By relying more and more heavily on magic to fix problems as the stories continue, Mr. Baum gradually removes our awe of Dorothy’s special non-magical status. In Glinda of Oz (the 14th and final Oz book), when many Oz characters come together to save an underwater city, remove a despotic leader and bring peace between two nations, Dorothy’s natural acumen and willingness to think through difficulties prove to be valuable assets. But her accomplishments are nearly overshadowed by the magical hijinks of Glinda, Ozma, the Wizard and the aforementioned trio of magical Adepts.
Mr. Baum appeared to be ambivalent about female dominance in his novels. Women of all stripes play principal roles in Oz; in the last novel, supernatural power is mainly wielded by Ozma, Glinda, Coo-ee-oh, Rora Flathead, Reera the Red, Audah, Aurah and Aujah (known as the Three Adepts). We see decency in Lady Aurex, who is opposed to her mistress’s harsh rule and is later made queen and sole ruler of the Skeezers.
However, armies led by Oz women are shown to be determined, yet kindly, gentle, flighty and often easily defeated. Armies led by men and composed of male warriors are cruel, violent, destructive, powerful and difficult to overthrow (unless you’ve got magic on your side: e.g., the savage nome army in The Emerald City of Oz [the sixth book] is defeated by the simple trick of having its main antagonists drink from the Forbidden Fountain and lose all their memories, a tactic later repeated in The Magic of Oz). Mr. Baum may have thought a world run by women could be better managed than one ruled by men. But he does so by portraying Oz women as rather useless in a straight fight and making female fighters seem inane to boot. (Male chauvinism can display itself in rather queer ways.)
Baum novels also reveal a distinct prejudice against non-white people. In two stories he makes mention of tottenhots (an obvious anagram of Hottentot). In one, they are a dark-skinned people who act like giddy children by hopping out of pots on the ground and gleefully pestering strangers. In another, Bilbil the goat is momentarily transformed into one, “a lower form of a man”. Queen Cor is a ferocious, cunning woman described as having “flashing black eyes and the dark complexion you see on gypsies”.
The only explanation we can give for these narrow-minded viewpoints is that Mr. Baum was born in the mid-19th century and wrote these stories in early 20th-century America, years before women or African Americans were given the vote. He remained a product of his time, complete with the bigotries ingrained into his culture, class, society and gender.
Despite glaring flaws, this volume nevertheless maintains the spirited heart of Oz. The main characters are devoted to each other, despite internal bickering. They protect one another and Ozma protects her kingdom. Females govern even with their character defects. Wisdom comes from unlikely sources. There are people willing to remain poor and without title, seeing their current situations as infinitely superior to ones that might expose them needlessly to pain, threat, bother or danger. There is misery and discontent, friendship and joy. Mr. Baum’s obvious fondness for his creation shines through even in the feeblest of stories. May children learn more about Oz than what we know of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
In The Scarecrow of Oz (the 9th book), Cap’n Bill Wheedles meets the Tin Woodman for the first time and the latter is written as “all made of tin, even to his heart”. In yet another novel, the heart is stated to be velvet. Both statements directly contradict the ending of the very first novel when the humbug Wizard gives Nick Chopper a silk heart stuffed with sawdust.
Baum even miswrites from one page to the next. In The Tin Woodman of Oz (the 12th book), Tommy Kwikstep says that he was carrying medicine when he made a thoughtless wish that gave him 20 legs. After the wish is reversed, he says he’s going to deliver the note he’s been carrying ever since the witch or fairy granted his foolish desire. Which is it? Medicine or note?
In The Magic of Oz (the 13th book), the Glass Cat once more reappears. At the end of The Patchwork Girl of Oz (the 7th book), the Wizard made her brains transparent so as to render her modest and well behaved in disposition. But, in the 13th book, she is once again vain and inordinately proud of her flashing pink brains, which can be seen clearly, a fact she points out to almost everyone she meets.
The uneven quality of the Oz stories continues to manifest itself in this volume. Tik-Tok of Oz has an ineffectual protagonist in the title. Tik-Tok is only a mechanical man, not alive like the Scarecrow or the Tin Woodsman. Because he is merely logical and without feeling, he has all the personality of a kitchen ladle. He winds down and has to be continually rewound. He doesn’t walk well on rocky ground and makes pratfalls in a couple of passages. As the only soldier in Queen Ann’s army, he is promptly captured and rescue falls to that of the living people around him while he remains inert and immobile. He is reduced to being a damsel-in-distress character and thus is a poor choice as a major character.
The Scarecrow of Oz proves to be one of the disappointing entries in the series. Given the title, one would presume that the Scarecrow has a large role to play. But he doesn’t appear until the 13th chapter! He proves a pathetic excuse for a hero, too, getting captured when he tells a king to surrender and abdicate his throne. When he’s nearly burnt at the stake, he’s rescued by a bunch of flying Orks. The only good he does is to shrink the witch Blinkie, get her to reverse spells on Cap’n Bill and Princess Gloria and strip the witch of her powers, acts that could have been accomplished by Glinda or the Wizard himself.
Before we read about him, however, we are exposed once more to Button-Bright, one of the most boring and one-dimensional recurring characters in the Oz novels. First seen in The Road to Oz, Button-Bright was a cute little boy who did little except emote. But now he has no emotional affect at all, seemingly content to eat, sleep and make dull, pragmatic statements about whatever’s happening around him. He declines to think because it makes him tired and he’s found little gain comes of it. He has more conversation but fewer dispositions and his main attribute is that he’s always getting lost but someone always finds him again.
Trot and Cap’n Bill’s adventures in The Scarecrow of Oz begin much like the Shaggy Man’s in The Road to Oz. The story opens with Trot and Cap’n Bill stranded on an island with no indication of where they came from, how they got there or why they went there in the first place. It’s vexing reading stories like that; you always wonder what kind of backstory you’re missing.
King Rinkitink is another irritating Baum fabrication. (Another is Cayke the Cookie Cook, a maudlin Winkie woman who spends most of her time moaning over the loss of her enchanted dishpan.) Rinkitink is a lazy bum and has run away from his kingdom because he hates performing his duties as a ruler. He’s prone to bouts of facetious laughter, rhymes and song and so obese walking for any length of time tires him. He’s a moronic creature of appetite and little agency unless he’s being prodded to action. It doesn’t make any sense that it’s his name in the title of Rinkitink in Oz (the 10th book), when it’s Prince Inga who is the undoubted hero of it.
As a rare male protagonist of Oz, Prince Inga proves himself a resourceful, intelligent, clever, redoubtable and stalwart presence. He needs to be; this is an atypical Oz story that features real violence, warfare, destruction and the horrors of enslavement. The Winkies declared themselves to have been enslaved by the Wicked Witch of the West in the first Oz book. But we never see the real suffering that slavery entails until we read Rinkitink in Oz.
There have been girl fighters in Oz but they are presented as being rather ineffectual and silly. Queen Ann’s attempts to rule other lands are crippled from the start by a tiny squadron composed mainly of one soldier and cowardly generals. She also doesn’t really want to hurt people and would prefer that her opponents merely surrender. Captain Jinjur and her girl army are armed with nothing more lethal than knitting needles.
The warriors of Regos and Coregos are of a different stripe. They carry swords, spears and battle-axes. In one bold assault, they raid the island of Pingaree, looting it of its treasures, enslaving its people and tearing down all of its buildings.
It’s up to young Prince Inga to mount a rescue armed with nothing more than his cleverness, three magical pearls, the overweight lard-bottom and Rinkitink’s irascible talking goat Bilbil. After a series of adventures, Inga frees everyone from bondage by King Gos and Queen Cor. But he can’t free his parents from the Nome King Kaliko. It lies up to Dorothy Gale to do so.
Here is where Mr. Baum’s imagination fails him. I have no doubt that Dorothy is a character of courage, kindness, decency, intelligence and loyalty. But she pops into this story when she is without active agency for most of it, appearing via Magic Carpet after reading in Glinda’s Great Book of Records about Inga’s predicament in the nome kingdom. She threatens Kaliko with eggs unless he releases the King and Queen of Pingaree and that’s that. Everyone is freed and they all go back to the Emerald City for a royal banquet.
Using Dorothy in such a fashion cheapens Inga’s own efforts and reduces her to being a deus ex machina. It’s an awkward ending and it’s not the first time Ozma, the Wizard, Dorothy or some other Oz denizen is yanked into a story to provide magical rescue.
Dorothy, Ozma and Glinda frequently check in on matters going on in Oz, either through a Magic Picture or Great Book. But they don’t bring themselves to interfere unless absolutely necessary. Does this allow their subjects free action, albeit under an unsettling régime surveillance? Yes, it does. Does it mean that they lend extraordinary effort only under extraordinary trials? Yes, it does. Is either of these good things? Hmmm. When I consider the problem, I must say I’m of two minds of the matter. On the one hand, it might be considered efficient leadership. On the other hand, it’s a lousy plot device.
Consider the very first Oz novel. Dorothy lands in an enchanted world possessing no magic or magical friends of any sort. She makes friends and allies and they solve problems without sorcery or wizardry. After Dorothy accidentally kills the Wicked Witch of the West with a bucket of ordinary water, she returns to the Great and Powerful Oz…to discover that he’s a con man without any real power. She’s told to go to Glinda the Good who informs her that the silver slippers she’s worn this entire time are capable of taking her back home and she returns home, losing the slippers in the process.
Save for using a Golden Cap to command the Flying Monkeys, Dorothy works without magical aid only the stalwart support of her friends. By relying more and more heavily on magic to fix problems as the stories continue, Mr. Baum gradually removes our awe of Dorothy’s special non-magical status. In Glinda of Oz (the 14th and final Oz book), when many Oz characters come together to save an underwater city, remove a despotic leader and bring peace between two nations, Dorothy’s natural acumen and willingness to think through difficulties prove to be valuable assets. But her accomplishments are nearly overshadowed by the magical hijinks of Glinda, Ozma, the Wizard and the aforementioned trio of magical Adepts.
Mr. Baum appeared to be ambivalent about female dominance in his novels. Women of all stripes play principal roles in Oz; in the last novel, supernatural power is mainly wielded by Ozma, Glinda, Coo-ee-oh, Rora Flathead, Reera the Red, Audah, Aurah and Aujah (known as the Three Adepts). We see decency in Lady Aurex, who is opposed to her mistress’s harsh rule and is later made queen and sole ruler of the Skeezers.
However, armies led by Oz women are shown to be determined, yet kindly, gentle, flighty and often easily defeated. Armies led by men and composed of male warriors are cruel, violent, destructive, powerful and difficult to overthrow (unless you’ve got magic on your side: e.g., the savage nome army in The Emerald City of Oz [the sixth book] is defeated by the simple trick of having its main antagonists drink from the Forbidden Fountain and lose all their memories, a tactic later repeated in The Magic of Oz). Mr. Baum may have thought a world run by women could be better managed than one ruled by men. But he does so by portraying Oz women as rather useless in a straight fight and making female fighters seem inane to boot. (Male chauvinism can display itself in rather queer ways.)
Baum novels also reveal a distinct prejudice against non-white people. In two stories he makes mention of tottenhots (an obvious anagram of Hottentot). In one, they are a dark-skinned people who act like giddy children by hopping out of pots on the ground and gleefully pestering strangers. In another, Bilbil the goat is momentarily transformed into one, “a lower form of a man”. Queen Cor is a ferocious, cunning woman described as having “flashing black eyes and the dark complexion you see on gypsies”.
The only explanation we can give for these narrow-minded viewpoints is that Mr. Baum was born in the mid-19th century and wrote these stories in early 20th-century America, years before women or African Americans were given the vote. He remained a product of his time, complete with the bigotries ingrained into his culture, class, society and gender.
Despite glaring flaws, this volume nevertheless maintains the spirited heart of Oz. The main characters are devoted to each other, despite internal bickering. They protect one another and Ozma protects her kingdom. Females govern even with their character defects. Wisdom comes from unlikely sources. There are people willing to remain poor and without title, seeing their current situations as infinitely superior to ones that might expose them needlessly to pain, threat, bother or danger. There is misery and discontent, friendship and joy. Mr. Baum’s obvious fondness for his creation shines through even in the feeblest of stories. May children learn more about Oz than what we know of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
March 19, 2020
Compaired to other big books of fairytales that have some sort of chronological order, this one is not very consistent. Things that are added in later stories conflict with previous ones. If you read them back to back, it is noticable.
But I liked the stories and I especially appreciated that the point of view is different in different stories. It keeps the stories fresh and the wide mix of cast is a delight.
But I liked the stories and I especially appreciated that the point of view is different in different stories. It keeps the stories fresh and the wide mix of cast is a delight.
July 7, 2020
Check out my reviews on each individual book on their main pages!
July 7, 2020
Check out my reviews on each individual book on their main pages!
April 3, 2022
I personally preferred the books after Dorothy and getting to know Oz and it’s characters better 🙂
December 4, 2012
The 2nd volume of the Oz Chronicles covers books 8-14 written by L. Frank Baum from 1914 up until & beyond his death in 1920. Across 8 separate volumes, Baum enhances the magic & wonder of the land he created & takes us on journeys that enhance the land itself & are as equally as interesting to read as the previous ones. Granted there are some rather implausible stories in this series, but there are also some stories that make Oz itself a wonderful place to visit. Very easily an enjoyable set of books to read from an author who took us over the rainbow to a land where anything was truly possible.
Read
January 14, 2010The Oz Chronicles (Borders Leatherbound Classics, Volume 2) by L. Frank Baum (2003)
April 13, 2016
Love his imagination. Would love to read these to a child sometime. They beg to be read aloud. Alos really enjoyed the letter to his readers at the beginning of each story.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews