I’m totally reading these books now.
Baum hadn’t quite worked out the “no death” rule when he wrote “The Wizard of Oz”. The tone of the first book is slightly different than the others, since it was imagined as a one-off story rather than a franchise. The Judy Garland movie follows the plot of the first book fairly closely, with a few episodes left out, like the thousands of mice that rescue them from the poppies.
“The Land of Oz” with Tip, Jack Pumpkinhead, the Wogglebug, the Sawhorse, and the Gump is probably the best of the lot.
I preferred an entirely unrelated book of Baum’s; The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People. Who wouldn’t want to live in Mo, where it rains lemonade, the beach is made of pure sugar, and everything you want grows on trees and is free for the plucking?! I still have my mother’s 1953 edition.
Was that the one with the rebel army of teenage girls armed with knitting needles laying siege to the Emerald City? Its sexual politics were… interesting.
Hey man, whaddaya expect?! “Oz!” Duh! Baum was the Wizard of Ounce! 
See? There you are once again. Baum was a dude who always wanted some Mo.
Yup. Jinjur was based on Baum’s Suffragette mother in law (who he adored). Apparently it was a pretty funny/loving parody of her.
Another bit of weirdness is how quickly all the Wizard’s major villany gets forgotten.
He takes over Oz (through fraud), overthrowing the legitimate ruler (Pastoria, Ozma’s daddy) and presumably has Pastoria executed*. He takes Pastoria’s infant daughter Ozma and, when he can’t quite bring himself to kill her, he gives her to a Wicked Witch to transform and keep off the throne.
Then, when a 6 year old girl (based on the pictures in the first book) comes asking for help, he sends her out to defeat the remaining Wicked Witch even though he A) knows she’s just a little kid from Kansas (he’s from Omaha remember, so he knows exactly what that means) and B) knows she doesn’t stand a chance and C) can’t complete his part of the bargain even if she does.
When he returns in book 4, all of t hat is forgotten. But the character really is quite a monster
*If a legit heir isn’t on the throne, people in Oz can die, apparently.
I loved the books. Yeah, they’re weird as anything, but it’s positively lovely to delve into a world of complete fantasy. Oz is not a monster, he’s a humbug, and says as much. You just have to kind of go with the flow in the Oz books, and understand it’s a different universe and can’t be judged by ours.
Lots of things are like that.
To be fair, the book was written during the height of the imperialist period. It was a given back then that Westerners were allowed to take over any non-Western countries they felt like.
And its not all dark. Some parts of the stories are delightful.
I am especially fond of Polychrome, the Rainbow’s Daughter, who keeps being stranded in Oz after wandering off to explore and beng left being when the rainbow withdraws.
I think that no one dies naturally in Oz, but they can still be killed through accident or murder.
I could never help but wonder if this is what inspired an episode of a childhood favorite show, “Bump in the Night.”
Who says philosophy doesn’t have practical (and lifesaving) applications? 
I’m at work so I cannot click through on the linkie, but is that the episode where the rag-doll character upgraded herself to action-figure killing machine levels?
I have yet to read any of the books (though this thread is making me think that should be my next project), but as a kid I was always fascinated/scared by the movie Return to Oz. Based, I think, on some of Baum’s later books, and certainly more dark and bizarre than the classic Wizard of Oz movie.
{As most (all?) of the Baum books are in the public domain, there have been people who have recorded audiobooks and placed the recording in the public domain. Lots of them are available from librivox.com as either M4Bs (which means it will work as an audiobook in iTunes or on an iPod) or even in multiple files as MP3 or OGG. It’s quite a good resource, though of course the quality of the recording can vary widely depending on the reader. A check of the FAQ shows me that they don’t even release under the Creative Commons license but go straight to public domain release.}
I got 14 of the LF Baum Oz books for 99 cents on my Nook. It’s called “The Complete Wizard of Oz Collection” and is from MobileReference. Didja know that other authors kept up the franchise?
Here is a very interesting (and very well done) take on the Woodsman’s story. A bit long (22 minutes) but worth it.
That’s the one—in fact, she starts off by replacing one arm, then the other, then both legs, getting to the point where she’s replaced her torso, and then decides to discard her own head for a more vicious replacement…
At which point one of her friends, who’s been collecting the parts, puts them all back together—essentially the entire doll, minus the first missing arm—and she wakes up, groggily asking what happened. While the “her” made entirely of the replacement parts is still running around and talking. :eek: 
Nice lil’ dash of mind-blowing. Always loved that part.
Wow. That was amazing! Thank you for sharing that link, Infovore.
Thats the Gump!!
I loved the Gump, and recall daydreaming about having one of my very own to take me places. I know they brought it (and Jack Pumpkinhead) to life with the magical Powder of Life…but wasn’t there some problem with the Powder of Life wearing off while they were riding the Gump and they had to figure out how to revive it?
I was always disturbed by Bungle the Glass Cat with her pink marbles for brains…she was so proud of them and pointing out that you could “see 'em working”.