The Tin Woodman of Oz by L. Frank Baum - #Ozathon24

If you remember when Dorothy first met the Tin Woodman in The Wizard of Oz, he revealed he was once an ordinary wood-chopper in love with a Munchkin girl. After his axe was enchanted by a witch, he lost every limb, one by one, and a tin-smith replaced everything with tin. Once his heart was gone, he no longer loved the girl, so continued as a tin man until he got caught in a rainstorm and rusted, ultimately to be rescued by Dorothy.

In this book, a new character, Woot the Wanderer, exploring Oz, turns up at the Tin Woodman's palace as if it is a hostel to spend the night.  He meets the Tin Woodman, who is entertaining the Scarecrow, and asks for his story. Once Woot has heard it and learns that the Wizard gave the Tin Woodman a new heart, he asks why the Tin Woodman did not return to his lost love, Nimmie Amee, to make her Empress of the Winkies. Much struck, the Tin Woodman realizes he has been thoughtless and decides to go find her, accompanied by the Scarecrow and Woot. Of course, there are various adventures on the way, made most interesting by their encounter with a Giantess, who transforms the Tin Woodman into a Tin Owl, the Scarecrow to a Stuffed Brown Bair, and Woot into a monkey. There they unexpectedly encounter Polychrome, the Rainbow’s Daughter, whom the Giantess has previously captured and transformed into a canary. Once the four escape, they manage to take refuge with old friend Jinjur (once a self-appointed general) and Ozma and Dorothy – having seen the transformations in Ozma’s Magic Picture - come to the rescue to restore them to their correct selves.

But the main point of the book is still to come! When the Tin Woodman tells Ozma and Dorothy about his quest to find Nimmie Amee, they are a bit skeptical, Dorothy more outspoken:

“Do you s’pose Nimmie still loves you after all these years?” asked Dorothy.

“I’m quite sure of it, and this is why I am going to her to make her happy. Woot the Wanderer thinsk I ought to reward her for being faithful to me after my meat body was chopped to pieces and I became tin. What do you think, Ozma?”

Ozma smiled as she said.

“I do not know your Nimmie Amee, and so I cannot tell what she most needs to make her happy. But there is no harm in your going to her and asking her if she still wishes to marry you. If she does, we will give you a grand wedding at the Emerald City and afterward, as Empress of the Winkies, Nimmie Aree would become one of the most important ladies of Oz.”

Nimmie Aree is not destined to be an Empress, which is just as well as she is a very cold fish, but not a gold digger. It turns out that after she lost the Tin Woodman, she lost a soldier boyfriend in exactly the same way – body parts destroyed by an axe, then replaced by tin. She consoled herself by marrying a man made up of their discarded parts and she prefers him, which unnerves both the Tin Woodman and his new friend, the Tin Soldier, both of whom thought they were doing her a favor by returning to propose. At least, Nimmie Aree’s satisfaction with her husband means our guy is off the hook! If there is a message in this 12th book in the series, it is that the men, heartless or not, should never assume they are right and it is the girls who must rescue them.

Coincidentally, I have been listening to The Scarecrow by Michael Connelly, in which a clue to the identity of a serial killer comes from The Wizard of Oz. It is another brilliant book by this author, despite the fact that the reader knows who the killer is and is merely waiting for journalist Jack McEvoy and his FBI friend Rachel to figure it out.

Illustrator: John R. Neill
Publication: Dover Paperback, originally published in 1918
Genre: Juvenile fantasy/series
Source: Library