The Patchwork Girl Of OZ!

Frank Baum's plan had been to wrap up the OZ series with the sixth volume in 1910, but the need for money saw him return to the series three years later with The Patchwork Girl of OZ. Since in the last novel he'd sealed the OZ dimension off from the planet Earth, he had to concoct a way to rationalize another tale's creation, so he said he was in telegraph connection with Dorothy, and so had access to new adventures. (I was reminded of the way Edgar Rice Burroughs has the character Jason Gridley is able to use his "Gridley Wave" to make contact with David Innes in Pellucidar to give him more inner world adventures in 1930.) 

The story gives us a new gang of idiots to follow. The core character is a young boy named Ojo the Unlucky who lives with his taciturn uncle in the forests of Munchkin land. They meet up with a magician named Dr. Pipt who is the one who actually made the "Powder of Life" which had animated Jack Pumpkinhead among others in earlier novels. This time the stuff is used to bring to life a girl fabricated from a patchwork quilt, who was intended as a servant. But Pipt's wife and Ojo's uncle are afflicted by stuff that makes them into living statues. 

So, it falls to Ojo, Scraps the Patchwork Girl, a glass cat named Bungle, and a strange cube-shaped critter called the Woozy to trek across OZ to gather the necessary materials to make them well. The group eventually hook up with more familiar denizens of OZ such as the Shaggy Man, the Scarecrow (who cottons to Scraps), and Dorothy and Toto among many others.  

These familiar faces help them with their quest. The highlight of this book is the rambunctious nature of Scraps, who cares little for convention. 

This novel was adapted to silent film in 1914 by Baum himself with his own movie-making outfit, and it is one of only three surviving films from The OZ Film Manufacturing Company, and it was the sole effort by the company to be distributed by Paramount which itself was only a year old.  The Patchwork Girl herself is played by a man (and it shows) robbing the part of the innocent female charm of the book's original. The story also adds a romance angle which only takes up space and Ojo is played by a girl, yet is supposed to be a boy and that switches in the story as well. So, all in all a rather ineffective affair. See it at this link. 

But that said, I did enjoy reading the story and I look forward the next one titled TikTok of OZ. 

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