Fairy Tale Spotlight: The Rundlestone of Oz [Book Review]

[Contains spoilers for a book nobody reads anymore.]

"The Rundlestone of Oz" is the fiftieth book in the Oz series created by L. Frank Baum. It was written by Eloise Jarvis McGraw. It was published in 2001.

Well, there goes another ten books! I have read fifty Oz books. Not stopping here. Nope. Gotta keep going all the way to the last one. You have no idea how much money this is costing me.

"The Rundlestone of Oz" is about a living marionette boy named Poco who is apart of a troop of performers that travel around Oz in a wagon. He and his troop are transformed by an evil magician who is... kind of a jerk on top of being evil. He just does it because he likes having power over people. I thought it was amusing honestly.

Poco must find a stone called a Rundlestone in order to change all his friends back into their true forms without the magician figuring out what is going on. The stone itself is a mystery in how to use it. You have to hold it the right way, you have to be able to read the writing on it, you have to actually see the writing which can only happen if you look at it in just the right way, and if you make any mistakes, you get cursed.

There are a couple of things that make this book different than other Oz books. The first thing is that this book almost completely and entirely focuses on characters who are non-returning canon characters. Although Ozma shows up for the very first chapter, you have to deal with Poco and his friends until the last few. This creates a very interesting perspective that does not happen much at all in Oz. You get to see Oz from the perspective of one of its many citizens outside of the view of the Emerald City celebrities.

The second thing that should be said about this story is that it is extremely well and eloquently written. It feels more like an adult book intended for children. Every single aspect of the characters, there feelings, their hopes and dreams, were carefully constructed in this book. It was a marvelous undertaking. It was all spectacularly paced as well. I could even see this being a movie.

Even though these characters are not the usual Oz fair, you will care about them as you learn about their uniqueness and personal qualities. All the characters, both main and supporting, good guys and villains, were very cool to learn about. By the end of the story, I felt as if I had always known them, even though they had only appeared for this single story. Bravo.

If I had only one criticism to mention, the names of everyone in this book are very hard to pronounce. They were made long and cumbersome as a means to make them seem silly. The worst of it was a man who was called Blo-ab-Ditherdum-cum-Trumm-nun. Yes, that was an entire name that got repeated in full for the entire story. None of the other names were much better honestly, but it really did not bring the story down that much. Don't worry about that.

I absolutely recommend "The Rundlestone of Oz" for just being a wonderfully constructed story with very interesting characters. I got really invested in this one, and I think you will too if you choose to read it.

This blog was written on August 16, 2023.

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