Reading Ojo in Oz Aloud to My Son

Ojo in Oz by Ruth Plumly Thompson, illustrated by John R. Neill

Prior to this novel, Thompson never showed the slightest interest in Ojo, the protagonist of my favorite Oz novel, The Patchwork Girl of Oz. (To be fair, I don't think Baum did after Patchwork Girl either.) It's a bit surprising, then, that she'd devote a book to him; one kind of imagines her publisher going, "okay, Ruth, enough books about your characters, give us one about one of Frank's," and then she runs her finger down a list of Oz characters until she comes to the most prominent one to not yet get a book.

Originally published: 1933
Acquired: April 2023
Read aloud: April–May 2023

The book begins with Ojo being kidnapped. Specifically, kidnapped by members of the Romani people, though of course the book uses what is now considered an ethnic slur to describe them. This is, to be honest, super weird—and of course highly offensive. It is, I think, the first time a human ethnic group has been mentioned as residing in Oz. It's been pretty clear that Munchkins, Quadlings, Gillikins, and Winkies are their own ethnic groups. We've never heard of, say, Hispanics hanging out somewhere in Oz, even if we do occasionally get people who are very clearly based on some kind of real-world ethnicity (such as the clearly Arabianesque Mudgers of Cowardly Lion).

And, of course, the Roma are unrepentant villains: they have a bear captive against his well, they kidnap Ojo, they are dirty, they fight, they steal. As soon as Unc Nunkie sees the Roma roll into the Emerald City, he knows they are up to no good, and he runs to tell Ozma that. Thompson loves to truck in racial stereotypes, and this is definitely the most awful instance of that since Royal Book. At the end of the book, Ozma deports all the Roma to southern Europe—while she gives the book's bandits nice farms in the Winkie country even though the bandits have been doing the exact same thing as the Roma!

To the extent that I could, I solved this problem when reading the book aloud to my four-year-old son by remaking them into people just called "Takers," and at the end of the novel, I had Ozma send them to the Quadling Country, where the firm rule of Glinda would teach them how to be good. If I had realized that a robber band would play a significant role in the novel, though, I might have picked a different name, because it's a bit confusing I think to have both "Takers" and "robbers"! I felt validate by my decision when, at the end of the book, I asked my son how he liked it. "I mostly loved it," he said. When I asked what he didn't love, he said, "The parts about the Takers and Mooj the Magician." I am very glad he did not say that about a real-life ethnic group... but if when he gets older he wants to read these books himself, we will definitely need to have a conversation around this one.

Now, if you can get past all this—and I don't blame you if you can't—it is a solid, above-average Thompson novel. After Ojo is kidnapped by the Roma, the Roma are set upon by bandits who capture Ojo in turn. The bandits learn that Ojo is wanted: whoever brings him to Moojer Mountain will receive bag upon bag of sapphires. So the leader of the bandits, the charming, aristocratic Realbad, heads off to Moojer Mountain with Ojo and the bear, Snufferbux, in tow. They get into the usual Thompson hijinks, visiting a crystal city frozen by a blue dragon, a town where everyone taps their feet instead of speaking, a forest ruled over by unicorns, and so on. Like in the better Thompsons, it's elevated by the interplay between the characters. Of course Ojo wants to escape from Realbad... but he also finds himself looking up to and admiring the courageous bandit. This is something Snufferbux does not understand at all, and he keeps trying to get Ojo to slip away with him and run off for the Emerald City. Realbad and Snuffer grouse at each other as Ojo tries to keep the peace; the three work together to solve the problems they end up in. (There's also a brief subplot about Dorothy, Scraps, and the Cowardly Lion trying to find Ojo; Thompson always does well by all three, so it's a good combination.)

At the end of the novel, Ozma, the Wizard, and Unc Nunkie finally catch up to Ojo and company, and everything is solved in a second by Ozma's Magic Belt. This, surely, is the tough part of writing an Oz book; you have to keep Ozma and the Wizard as far away from the action as long as possible.

We get all the usual explanations: in classic Thompson fashion, it turns out Ojo is secretly a prince, for Realbad is secretly his father, and secretly Ree Alla Bad, the rightful King of Seebania. Seebania was a forest kingdom who used to exert dominion over all the southern Munchkin Country, but when Ozma came to the throne, the relinquished their power. That was around when Mooj the Magician turned up, worming his way into power; then he destroyed Ree Alla Bad's father, made himself King of Seebania, and exiled Ree Alla Bad, telling him that if he ever spoke of his true identity or what had happened in Seebania, his magic would destroy his wife, the Princess Isomere. So Ree Alla Bad fell in with a robber band and adopted the persona of Realbad; meanwhile, Isomere gave birth to a son, Ojo, in captivity, and Ree Alla Bad's uncle made off with him.

Why didn't Unc Nunkie ever tell anyone all of this? Not very clear, to be honest. How did Ozma and Glinda not notice any of this? Also not clear, but probably we can posit that Ozma's ascension into power after Marvelous Land was a bit more tumultuous than is directly shown in the books. If the Seebanians controlled the southern Munchkins pre-Ozma, wouldn't that have been during the time of the Wicked Witch of the East? Between this book and Giant Horse, Thompson has created quite a troubled history for rulers of the Munchkins. Mooj was attempting to eliminate Ojo in order to secure his hold on the Seebanian crown, but in drawing Realbad's attention to Ojo, inadvertently brought about his own doom. (Ozma turns Mooj into a drop of water, but this seemed unnecessarily cruel, so I had her just strip him of his magic powers. I wish we saw more of Mooj here, actually; his clock magic was interesting.)

Some complain that Thompson takes interesting characters off the board in her books, but I'm not sure this was true of Ojo, for he was never really on the board to begin with, and there's a nice hook for future adventures with Ree Alla Bad, Ojo, and Snuffer all living together now, though neither Thompson nor any other writer ever picked up on it. I think Thompson does well by Ojo's character; his attraction to Realbad ties in well with a practical slyness in Ojo's character that we saw in Patchwork Girl, though I would have appreciated once reference to his status as Ojo the Lucky né Unlucky.

Our run of Thompson Del Reys.
The POD editions are slightly larger than the original
1980s printings we purchased via the Oz Club.

This is the last of the Thompson Del Reys we'll be reading. There were only two more after this, but we'll be reading those two books in different editions that include the color plates. Del Rey didn't quite make it through all of her contributions to the Famous Forty; I assume the sales weren't quite there, but they reprinted much more of her work than anyone else ever has. And, thanks to the miracle of print-on-demand, they have kept it in print! Aside from the generally strong Michael Herring covers, they are not always attractive editions, with some of John R. Neill's linework overly compressed, and many typographical issues. But if you want to read the Thompsons that are still under copyright, they are certainly your best bet. I wonder, however, to whom they are sending their royalties.

Next up in sequence: Speedy in Oz