Return to Oz: The Royal Book of Oz by Ruth Plumly Thompson

Trade paperback, 312 pages
Published 2001 (originally 1921)
Acquired December 2009
Read December 2016

The Royal Book of Oz: In which the Scarecrow goes to search for his family tree and discovers that he is the Long Lost Emperor of the Silver Island, and how he was rescued and brought back to Oz by Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion
 by L. Frank Baum
enlarged and edited by Ruth Plumly Thompson
illustrated by John R. Neill

This is the first Oz book written by someone who wasn't L. Frank Baum (don't believe the cover and title page, they lie). It's not terrible, but it's not very good, either. The Scarecrow goes off to find his family tree and ends up in an underground kingdom of racist caricatures-- even leaving aside the racist caricatures, it's not very interesting. Like, one would hope for the Scarecrow to do some clever stuff and grapple with the ruling of a country (and maybe Thompson could even remember that the Scarecrow has previously been a ruler), but mostly he just whines a lot and the story goes in circles.

Meanwhile, Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion go looking for him and end up in some weird places and meet some weird characters: I liked Sir Hokus of Pokes, the Arthurian knight who wandered into Oz, in particular. As a sort of outcast, he's the kind of character who paradoxically fits right into the the Oz novels.

Next Week: Eric Shanower shows us some new corners of fairyland, as he takes us on some Adventures in Oz!