The Emerald City of Oz: Just another sight-seeing tour of Oz

The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum

The Emerald City of Oz is L. Frank Baum’s sixth OZ book. Here we find Dorothy Gale back at home in Kansas. Uncle Henry and Aunt Em are about to lose their farm and they despair of what will happen to their niece Dorothy since they can no longer support her. The three decide that Dorothy should go live in Oz with her friend Princess Ozma who has often tried to get Dorothy to move there. But sweet little Dorothy can’t leave Uncle Henry and Aunt Em living lives of hard labor back in Kansas, so she gets permission to bring them to Oz, too.

Thus, Dorothy gets to give her aunt and uncle a tour of Oz (oh no!) and introduce them to all her friends — Cowardly Lion, Hungry Tiger, Billina, Sawhorse, Wizard, Pumpkinhead, Scarecrow, Woggle Bug, etc, etc, etc. On her tour she also runs into several strange inhabitants of Oz that she’s never seen before such as the people who are made out of puzzle pieces, the paper doll people, the people who are kitchen utensils and speak in bad puns, the people who are bakery items, the people who are afraid of unlikely disasters (the Flutterbudgets), and (my favorite) the people who can’t say anything succinctly (the Rigmaroles).

Meanwhile, the Nome King is regretting that he let Dorothy win his magic belt from him long ago. He is stuck under the mountain and unable to do magic. So he calls together his army and gets some allies to help him attack Oz. The Whimsies (who cover their small heads with big pasteboard heads so they’ll appear smarter), the Growleywogs (cruel giants), and the Phanfasms join up, but each has their own treacherous plans.

I mentioned in my review of the last OZ book, The Road to Oz, that these stories are starting to feel like little tours of Oz that L. Frank Baum quickly threw together to satisfy his legions of pint-sized Oz fans. They’re like a trip to Disney World — every time you go (please keep in mind that I have lived only an hour or two away for most of my life and I get Florida resident discounts), you see the same happy people and the same happy places and you do the same happy things. Much of The Emerald City of Oz is like that and all the imaginative races that Baum introduces made me feel like I was watching a Disney parade. Or sampled way too many products at the Disney candy shop. Or rode on the Tea Cups for too long. Or sat through It’s a Small World ten times in a row. To say it plainly: it’s just too much too fast and it’s hard to enjoy the frenetic pace of STUFF TO SEE coming at you. It’s sensory overload and I missed all the cleverness Baum expressed in the first few Oz books.  (It’s clear that he’s just writing for the children now.)

This was probably my last OZ book. I own the rest on audio and I hate to leave them languishing in my Audible library, but it’s just not fun anymore. This one was nicely narrated by Ron Knowles for Regent Press.