Ozma of Oz

A Record of Her Adventures with Dorothy Gale of
Kansas, the Yellow Hen, the Scarecrow, the Tin
Woodman, Tiktok, the Cowardly Lion and
the Hungry Tiger; Besides Other Good
People too Numerous to Mention
Faithfully Recorded Herein


Ozma of Oz: A Record of Her Adventures with Dorothy Gale of Kansas, Billina the Yellow Hen, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, Tik-Tok, the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger; Besides Other Good People Too Numerous to Mention Faithfully Recorded Herein published on July 30, 1907, was the third book of L. Frank Baum's Oz series. It was the first in which Baum was clearly intending a series of Oz books.

It is the first Oz book where the majority of the action takes place outside of the Land of Oz. Only the final two chapters take place in Oz itself. This reflects a subtle change in theme: in the first book, Oz is the dangerous land through which Dorothy must win her way back to Kansas; in the third, Oz is the end and aim of the book. Dorothy's desire to return home is not as desperate as in the first book, and it is her uncle's need for her rather than hers for him that makes her return.

It has been five years since The Wonderful Wizard of Oz took place. Uncle Henry has been ordered by his doctor to take a vacation from the stress and labor of having to replace the Kansas farmhouse due to the first one being swept away in a cyclone. He is accompanied by his adolescent niece, Dorothy Gale (this is the first of the Oz books in which the reader learns her last name), while aboard a small steamship headed to Australia while Aunt Em and Dorothy's pet dog Toto, stay behind to look after the newly built farmhouse. While traveling on the sea, a terrible storm suddenly hits, bringing rain and lightning, tossing the little ship violently over the waves. Henry and Dorothy are separated when she is accidentally thrown overboard and cast away into the water along with Billina, a yellow hen that was also on board. The two take refuge in a wooden chicken-coop floating nearby.

The next morning Dorothy and Billina wash ashore to an unknown region. Once on dry land, Dorothy picks something to eat from a lunch-box tree. She guesses that they are in a "fairy country" because lunch boxes do not grow on trees in ordinary countries, and only in a fairy country would an animal like Billina be able to talk. However, Dorothy knows they are not in the Land of Oz because that country has no coastline. After the meal they come across a message inscribed in the sand: "BEWARE THE WHEELERS"! Soon they meet these gaudily dressed, loud-yelling baddies who have wheels instead of hands and feet, and roll around on all fours. Dorothy and Billina climb a small rocky mountain to escape them and find a door carved into its side. Having found the key by the door, they open it and find Tik-Tok, a round copper mechanical man whom they activate by winding up all three of his clockwork motors (one each for thinking, motion and speech) with the key like a wind-up toy.

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