Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum - third and my favorite of the series

Title: Ozma of Oz
Author: L. Frank Baum
Illustrator: John R. Neill
Publication: The Reilly & Lee Co., hardcover, 1907
Genre: Juvenile fantasy/series

Description: Dorothy Gale is accompanying her Uncle Henry on a voyage to Australia, traveling for his health, when she is swept overboard during a storm. Floating on a chicken coop with a talking chicken she names Billina, Dorothy does not despair, knowing she has survived dangerous situations in the past. When they wash up on a sandy beach, Dorothy and Billina are grateful to be on land, and Dorothy is glad to find food, lunch-boxes growing on trees, and they rescue a mechanical man called Tiktok. He reveals they are in Ev and describes how the former king sold his family to the cruel Nome King. There are dangers in this land: first, they are menaced by the Wheelers, creatures that look like men with wheels instead of hands or feet, and then they seek help from Princess Langwidere, she imprisons them.

As Dorothy gazes out from her tower prison, she sees rescue coming: a great lion, a tiger, a lovely girl who can only be Ozma of Oz, followed by her two old friends, the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman. They have come to investigate the disappearing of King Evoldo’s family but persuade the princess to release Dorothy and Billina, who can then assist with their mission. When they reach the Nome King, he refuses to release the royal family of Ev and persuades his visitors to make a bargain with him: each will have to opportunity to search his palace, find the family members he has enchanted into bric-a-brac, and transform them back. However, if 11 guesses does not reveal a captive, the seekers themselves will be turned into ornaments. “Don’t do it!” exclaimed Dorothy. “If you guess wrong, you will be enslaved yourself.”

It is an unexpected member of the party who saves the day and, later, Glinda the Good is again asked to send Dorothy home to her family.

My Impression: Oz fans were delighted when their two favorites – Dorothy and Ozma – became friends in this book, and it is full of memorable characters such as the Wheelers, Tiktok, and Princess Langwidere with her 30 heads – she wants Dorothy to be the 31s, which leads to the lock-up. While it is still hard to reconcile Tip from The Land of Oz morphing into the dainty girl ruler Ozma, she has acquired wisdom and dignity sufficient not only to rule Oz but also to undertake a rescue in a neighboring country. Unfortunately, Ozma is accompanied by a particularly ineffective army, consisting of twenty-six officers and one private, so it is lucky she has the Scarecrow and his brains to come up with a non-military strategy.

Baum’s biographer, Katherine Rogers, points out that Dorothy is older and more confident in this book but continues her American “unselfconscious egalitarianism: she will soon be talking as an equal to a hen, a robot, and a princess” (158). Rogers also contrasts the benign efficiency of Tiktok, whose loyalty to Dorothy is very different from the cowardly behavior of Ozma’s human army, to the Giant with the Hammer, a deadly machine that blocks the way to the Nome King’s realm (159).

There are at least two family stories relating to Ozma of Oz. As I mentioned previously, my great-grandfather brought the Oz books home to his children and read them aloud when they were first published. It was my grandmother’s favorite in the series but instead of identifying with Ozma or Dorothy, her favorite character was the devious Nome King.  In the most dramatic part of the book, he offers them the chance to save the royal family if they are willing to take a risk.  They can survey everything in his palace and make eleven guesses as to what is enchanted:

"Oh, thank you!  Thank you for this kind offer!" said Ozma eagerly. 

"I make but one condition," added the Nome King, his eyes twinkling.  

"What is it?" she inquired.

"If none of the eleven objects you touch proves to be the transformation of any of the royal family of Ev, then, instead of freeing them, you will yourself become enchanted, and transformed into an article of bric-a-brac or an ornament.  This is only fair and just, and is the risk you declared you are willing to take." 

Someone gave my grandmother a jeweled belt when she was a child and she liked to wear it, pretending it was the Nome King’s magic belt so she could boss her younger siblings around. We still have the fragments of that first edition of Ozma of Oz; it was well loved as she was one of seven and my mother was one of four.

It is also my favorite Oz book, with its mixture of new and familiar characters and their various adventures (and not as many puns). Before I could read, when my parents read me chapter books, at the end of each chapter they would intone, “And the next chapter is . . .” and whoever was reading would add it impressively. So, of course, I noticed in Ozma, halfway through the book, when my mother failed to tell me a chapter title. She explained that it was because that chapter had scared her as a child but that made me all the more curious. I couldn’t sleep that night. Finally, I woke my father up about 2 am and got him to read it to me: The Giant with the Hammer. He was puzzled that my request could not wait until morning. I decided I had to learn how to read the very first week of first grade! Who knew what other information was out there waiting for me? And here I am, still thinking about books at 2 am, lo these many years later . . . .

Source: Family copy. Please visit Lory at Entering the Enchanted Castle who is hosting Ozathon24 and join in if you can! Here is Lory’s review of Ozma.

Illustrations copyright to the publisher