Fairy Tale Spotlight: The Emerald Wand of Oz [Book Review]

[This blog contains spoilers for a book nobody reads anymore.]

"The Emerald Wand of Oz" is the fifty-eighth book in the Oz series originally founded by L. Frank Baum. It was written by Sherwood Smith, who is a woman in case any of you can't tell from the name. It was published in 2005. I want to also point out that this book had no choice but to become canon since it was commissioned by the Baum Family Trust. Yes, the actual estate of L. Frank Baum paid to have this book made. I'm not joking.

The story follows the tale of Dori and Em, who very well may be descendants of the original Dorothy. They experience their own tornado and and end up in Oz. This is the very first tornado since the first book. Dori is the imaginative type who has read many of the Oz books. Em has only seen the movie, which she has to be pointed out quite often that it is not very representative of the actual world of Oz.

The latter point is something I rather liked. In some ways, that makes this story a good starting point for new readers. There are a lot of people who only know Oz by the grossly inaccurate movie. This book takes bits and pieces from the originals story, but it stays true to both the canon aspects of Oz as well as its long-held continuity.

Now, the main point of this story has to do with a witch who is using a special wand to steal the intelligence of Oz's leaders in order to conquer it. This witch is actually the niece of the Wicked Witch of the West. Yes, she sort of came out of nowhere, but they explained it off that she had been in "witch school" all of those years. Interestingly, she is very beautiful since she has not had enough time to become old and ugly yet.

Dori and Em team up with a nome boy named Rik to try and stop her and her evil plan. Although Rik has his own evil aspirations since he wants to take the throne of the Nomes, and that wand could certainly help him do that. These points, on the whole, are the basic driving points of the story.

Now, I do want to say that this book has a very slow start. After initially entering into Oz, the girls get stuck in one of Oz's many random encounters for nearly half of the book. They run into a village of unicorns that trap boys and girls, forcing them to dress them up and parade them around so that they feel good about themselves. I swear that for a long time I thought this was going to be the whole book! However, once they break free of this problem, the real plot of the book kicks in and stays strong to the end.

One really rather sad thing about this story is that it very heavily deals with the difference between our world and Oz. Everything is upsetting and cynical about life in a non-magical world. Parents have trouble staying together, and there are so many adults that just can't believe in anything more than what they see every day. But in Oz, everything is wonderful even when its scary. This is probably the best this contrast has been made in the series so far. The last I remember it being addressed was when Dorothy and her guardians were about to lose their house in Kansas, and so they just moved to Oz to not have to worry about it. Dori and Em don't have that latter privilege though, which is too bad.

Oh, and I do want to say that the new illustrator, William Stout, is very good, but this book hardly has any illustrations in it. Oz has historically been very heavily illustrated, and I was lucky to get even one picture in any given chapter. It's not really a bad thing, mind you. I read the first forty books without the illustrations. My imagination was plenty up to the task, but I was surprised of the lack of pictures this time around.

All said, I do recommend "The Emerald Wand of Oz," even if its your first Oz book. I would lastly like to mention, however, that I believe this book is the first in a trilogy. There were a number of loose ends that did not get tied up. I'm gonna get on that right now and let you know how things progress. Cheers.

This blog was written on December 7, 2023.

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