Category: 1960’s

SPOILER ALERT: Skip this bit if you haven’t read the book and are planning to do so!

Princess Ozma and Dorothy travel to an obscure corner of the Land of Oz, in order to prevent a war between two local powers, the Skeezers and the Flatheads.  The leaders of the two tribes prove obstinate and are determined to fight in spite of Ozma and Dorothy.  Unable to prevent the war, Dorothy and Ozma find themselves imprisoned on the Skeezers’ glass-covered island, which has been magically submerged to the bottom of its lake.  Their situation worsens when the warlike queen Coo-ee-oh, who is holding them captive and who alone knows how to raise the island back to the surface of the lake, loses her battle and gets transformed into a swan, forgetting all her magic in the process, and leaving the inhabitants of the island, with Ozma and Dorothy, trapped at the bottom of the lake.  Ozma and Dorothy summon Glinda, who, with help from several magicians and magical assistants, must find a way to raise the island to the surface of the lake again, and liberate its inhabitants.

Read more about Glinda Of Oz here.

The above articles were sourced from Wikipedia and are subject to change.    

SPOILER ALERT: Skip this bit if you haven’t read the book and are planning to do so!

At the top of Mount Munch lives a group of people known as the Hyups.  One of their numbers, a Munchkin named Bini Aru, discovered a method of transforming people and objects by merely saying the word “Pyrzqxgl”.  After Princess Ozma decreed that no one could practise magic in Oz except for Glinda the Good Witch and the Wizard of Oz, Bini wrote down the directions for pronouncing “Pyrzqxgl” and hid them in his magical laboratory.

When Bini and his wife are at a fair one day, their son Kiki Aru, who thirsts for adventure, finds the directions and afterwards transforms himself into a hawk and visits various countries outside the land of Oz.  When he alights in the land of Ev, Kiki Aru learns that he needs money to pay for a night’s lodging (versus Oz, where the money is not used at all) and changes himself into a magpie to steal a gold piece from an old man.  A sparrow confronts the then-human Kiki Aru with knowledge of the theft, and Kiki says that he did not know what it was like to be wicked before, he is glad that he is now.  This conversation is overheard by Ruggedo, the Nome who was exiled to the Earth’s surface in Tik-Tok of Oz, and he sees through Kiki Aru’s power a chance to get revenge on the people of Oz.

Kiki changes himself and Ruggedo into birds and they fly over the Deadly Desert into the Land of Oz.  They enter Oz as animals to escape detection by Glinda and to recruit an army of conquest from the country’s wild animal population.  When they first appear in the Forest of Gugu in the Gillikin Country, Kiki changes himself and Ruggedo into Li-Mon-Eags (fictional creatures with the heads of lions, the bodies of monkeys, and the wings of eagles as well as having the tails of donkeys) and lies that they’ve seen the people of the Emerald City plan to enslave the animal inhabitants of the Forest.  Ruggedo claims that the Li-Mon-Eags will transform the animals into humans and march on the Emerald City and transform its inhabitants into animals, driving them into the forest.  Ruggedo proves their power (for Kiki’s the only one who knows “Pyrzqxgl”) by having Kiki transform one of the leopard king Gugu’s advisors, Loo the unicorn, into a man and back again.  Gugu offers to meet with the leaders of the other animal tribes to decide on this matter of invasion.

Dorothy and the Wizard arrive with the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger in the Forest of Gugu during this council of war with a request for monkeys to train in time for Ozma’s upcoming birthday party.  Ruggedo recognizes his old enemies and inspires Kiki to begin transforming people and animals left and right — including Ruggedo, whom Kiki turns against by transforming him into a goose, a transformation that the Nome most fears because as a goose he might lay an egg.  (In Baum’s universe, all eggs are a deadly poison to nomes.)

The Wizard, whom Kiki transformed into a fox, follows the Li-Mon-Eag with his magic bag, the transformed Kiki, deep into the forest where he begins transforming monkeys into giant human soldiers.  However, Kiki makes them so big that they cannot move through the trees.  The Wizard, however, heard how to correctly pronounce “Pyrzqxgl” and first stops Kiki and Ruggedo by transforming them into a walnut and a hickory nut.  Then the Wizard resumes his rightful form and changes Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion, the Hungry Tiger, and Gugu back to their forms, and he agrees to change the soldiers back into monkeys.  The Wizard recruits several of the grateful monkeys and shrinks them down to bring them back to the Emerald City and train.

On arriving there, Dorothy and the Wizard are dispatched to a magic island where Cap’n Bill and Trot went to get a magic flower for Ozma’s birthday.  However, the island itself causes anything living that touches it to take root there, and that is how the sailor and his friend are found when Dorothy and the Wizard arrive.  The Wizard uses “Pyrzqxgl” to change Cap’n Bill and Trot into honeybees which narrowly avoid being eaten by the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger.  When they are human again, Cap’n Bill retrieves the flower by strapping a wood plank onto his good leg, walks with that and his wooden leg onto the island, and retrieves the flower.

Back at the Emerald City, Ozma and her friends celebrate her birthday (though without quite the pomp and fanfare from The Road to Oz) and then decide how to deal with the evil magicians transformed into nuts.  The Wizard uses “Pyrzqxgl” to change them back to Kiki Aru and Ruggedo and make them thirsty enough to drink the Water of Oblivion, which will make them forget all that they have ever known.  The now-blank slate Kiki Aru and Ruggedo will live in the Emerald City and learn to be good and kind.

Read more about The Magic Of Oz here.

The above articles were sourced from Wikipedia and are subject to change.   

SPOILER ALERT: Skip this bit if you haven’t read the book and are planning to do so!

Dorothy has risen from bed for the day and is seeing to her friends in the Emerald City and notices that Ozma has not awakened yet.  Dorothy goes into Ozma’s chambers only to find she is not there.

Glinda awakens in her palace in the Quadling Country and finds her Great Book of Records is missing. She goes to prepare a magic spell to find it- only to see her magic tools are gone as well.  She dispatches a messenger to the Emerald City to relay news of the theft.  Receiving the news, the Wizard hastily offers his magic tools to assist Glinda, however, these are missing as well.  Glinda, Dorothy, and the Wizard organize search parties to find Ozma and the missing magic.  Accompanying them are Button-Bright, Trot, and Betsy Bobbin. Dorothy and the Wizard’s party begins to search the Winkie Country to the west of the Emerald City.

Meanwhile, in the southwestern corner of the Winkie Country on a plateau belonging to the Yips, and Cayke the cookie cook has had her diamond-studded gold dishpan stolen.  The self-proclaimed adviser to the Yips, a human-sized dandy of a frog called the Frogman, hears Cayke’s story and offers to help her find the dishpan.  When they have gotten down the mountain, Cayke reveals to the Frogman that the dishpan has magic powers, for her cookies come out perfect every time.

Dorothy, the Wizard, and their party enter the previously unknown communities of Thi and Herku.  The citizens of Thi are ruled by the High Coco-Lorum (really the King, but the people do not know it) and repeat the same story about the Herkus: they keep giants for their slaves.  In the Great Orchard between Thi and Herku, the party enjoys a variety of fruits. Button-Bright eats from the one peach tree in the orchard.  When he reaches the peach’s centre he discovers it to be made of gold.  He pockets the gold peach pit to show Dorothy, Betsy, and Trot later – despite warnings from the local animals that the evil Ugu the Shoemaker has enchanted it.

In the city of Herku, Dorothy and the Wizard’s party are greeted by the emaciated but jovial Czarover of Herku, who has invented a pure energy compound called zosozo that can make his people strong enough to keep giants as slaves.  The Czarover offers them six doses to use in their travels and casually reveals that Ugu the Shoemaker came from Herku.  Ugu found magic books in his attic one day because he was descended from the greatest enchanter ever known and learned over time to do a great many magical things.  The Shoemaker has since moved from Herku and built a castle high in the mountains.  This clue leads Dorothy and the Wizard to think that Ugu might be behind all the recent thefts of magic and the ruler of Oz.  They proceed from Herku toward the castle and meet with the Frogman, Cayke the Cookie Cook, and the Lavender Bear the stuffed bear who rules Bear Center.  Lavender Bear carries the Little Pink Bear, a small wind-up toy that can answer any question about the past put to it.

When the combined party arrives at Ugu’s castle, Button-Bright is separated from them and falls into a pit.  Before they rescue him, the Wizard asks the Little Pink Bear where Ozma is and it says that she is in the pit, too.  After Button-Bright is let out of the pit, the Little Pink Bear says that she is there among the party.  Unsure what to make of this seeming contradiction, the party advances toward the castle.  Sure enough, Ugu is the culprit and the castle’s magical defences are techniques from Glinda and the Wizard.  Upon overcoming these, the party finds themselves standing before the thief himself.

Ugu uses magic to send the room spinning and retreats.  Dorothy stops it by making a wish with the magic belt.  She uses its power to turn Ugu into a dove, but he modifies the enchantment so he retains human size and aggressive nature.  Fighting his way past Dorothy and her companions, Ugu the dove uses Cayke’s diamond-studded dishpan to flee to the Quadling Country.

Once the magic tools are recovered, the conquering search party turns their attention to finding Ozma.  The Little Pink Bear reveals that Ozma is being carried in Button-Bright’s jacket pocket, where he placed the gold peach pit. The  Wizard opens it with a knife, and Ozma is released from where Ugu had imprisoned her.  She was kidnapped by Ugu when she came upon him stealing her and the Wizard’s magic instruments.

The people of the Emerald City and Ozma’s friends all celebrate her return.  Days later, the transformed Ugu flies in to see Dorothy and ask her forgiveness for what he did.  She offers it and offers to change him back with the Magic Belt, but Ugu has decided that he likes being a dove much better.

Read more about The Lost Princess Of Oz here.

The above articles were sourced from Wikipedia and are subject to change.