Review of ‘The Emerald City of Oz’ by L Frank Baum

Dorothy kept returning to her drab life in Kansas, when she could be a princess in Oz, because of her Aunty Em and Uncle Henry. In this book, the sixth instalment in the series, they are about to go bankrupt, so Dorothy has her aunt and uncle brought suddenly to Oz. It’s amusing to see their reactions to Oz, which they had never believed was a real place. It’s definitely a turning point because Oz is revealed to be 100% real, not a dream, make-believe or hallucination.

While Dorothy and her bunch of friends, relatives and creatures are touring Oz, evil is afoot. The Nome King, who can’t stand happy people, has a tunnel dug beneath the Deadly Desert so he can take over Oz. His general seeks out malevolent sorcerers and spirits to help, as the Nomes alone can’t withstand Ozma’s magic.

This is a fun read with some very curious people, such as a town of fragile paper dolls (don’t make a breeze!) and people whose bodies fall apart so they have to be put together like puzzles. If you go one way, it’s Bunbury, where everything is made of bread and cakes (naughty Toto, don’t eat those people) and the other way is Bunnybury which is a society of rabbits.

The book was intended to be the last in the series and it does feel like that. However, it was followed by several more!

Published in 1910. I read the copy on Project Gutenberg.

2 thoughts on “Review of ‘The Emerald City of Oz’ by L Frank Baum”

    1. I have a lot more of them to read! And the series was continued by another author.

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