The Road to OZ by L. Frank Baum was published in 1909 and is the darkest of the OZ books to date. With great artwork b John R. Neil this is the fourth trip Dorothy makes to the fairy land of OZ and for her at least it's getting to be rather normal. She's so accustomed to odd happenings that she doesn't think twice about travelling alongside a stranger known only to her and us as "The Shaggy Man". Kudos to the charitable minded Miss Gale, but this is the epitome of "Stranger Danger". But perhaps things were that much different over a century ago when it came to children wandering the byways of the United States. It doesn't help that this "Shaggy Man" purports to have a "Love Magnet" which makes people like him. There are spoilers galore below.
Accompanied by Toto, who it should be pointed out was cautious about this new character, Dorothy heads down the road and before you know it the party is of course lost, finding themselves in a strange territory where they must choose one of seven routes. That choice leads them to Button Bright, a naive young boy and later to Polychrome, the daughter of the Rainbow. This gang of five enters a hamlet run by foxes where Button Bright gets a new head, that of a fox. Later the Shaggy Man gets the head of a donkey when the group enters a town filled with those critters.
Then they chance upon a chap called a "Musicker" who is a fellow who makes music all the time with his bodily functions. Sounds nastier than it is. After that they encounter a gang of weird cannibals who want to make soup of them and try to capture them by throwing their own heads at them. Our heroes escape narrowly. They come to a vast desert which separates OZ from the rest of the lands and soon enough have a ship to sail across it thanks to a magic chap named Johnny DooIt who builds at a furious pace. Across the desert they come to the Truth Pond and these magic waters return both Button Bright and the Shaggy Man to their original forms.
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Soon enough they find themselves firmly in OZ and begin to meet old friends and allies such as Tik-Tok, Billina, Nick Chopper, the Scarecrow and others. The gang go to the Emerald City where Ozma informs Dorothy she's been following their adventures and she like them to stay to celebrate her birthday. What follows is a long celebration with an array of characters from past OZ books as well as other books Baum had written such as The Adventures of Santa Claus and John Dough and the Cherub. It's assumed that Baum might've included these characters from less popular books of his to cross promote with the wildly popular OZ books. Eventually the Wizard comes up with durable bubbles which whisk everyone home save for Dorothy who goes once again via Ozma's magic belt.
This was a strange book. It began with an edge but soon enough tumbled into the same pattern as the previous OZ book, becoming a mere travelogue. Baum introduces characters at a very rapid pace and tight situations get resolved in most cases before anything resembling tension can develop. There's not much plot save that Dorothy gets lost, finds a bunch of new creatures as friends and meets old friends then goes home. Hopefully Baum changes it up some as the series continues.
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