Plot summary
At the top of Mount Munch lives a group of people known as the Hyups. One of their numbers, a Munchkin named Bini Aru, discovered a method of transforming people and objects by merely saying the word "Pyrzqxgl". After Princess Ozma decreed that no one could practice magic in Oz except for Glinda the Good Witch and the Wizard of Oz, Bini wrote down the directions for pronouncing "Pyrzqxgl" and hid them in his magical laboratory.
When Bini and his wife are at a fair one day, their son Kiki Aru, who thirsts for adventure, finds the directions and afterward transforms himself into a hawk and visits various countries outside the land of Oz. When he alights in the land of Ev, Kiki Aru learns that he needs money to pay for a night's lodging (versus Oz, where the money is not used at all) and changes himself into a magpie to steal a gold piece from an old man. A sparrow confronts the then-human Kiki Aru with knowledge of the theft, and Kiki says that he did not know what it was like to be wicked before, he is glad that he is now. This conversation is overheard by Ruggedo, the Nome who was exiled to the Earth's surface in Tik-Tok of Oz , and he sees through Kiki Aru's power a chance to get revenge on the people of Oz.
Kiki changes himself and Ruggedo into birds and they fly over the Deadly Desert into the Land of Oz. They enter Oz as animals to escape detection by Glinda and to recruit an army of conquest from the country's wild animal population. When they first appear in the Forest of Gugu in the Gillikin Country, Kiki changes himself and Ruggedo into Li-Mon-Eags (fictional creatures with the heads of lions, the bodies of monkeys, and the wings of eagles as well as having the tails of donkeys) and lies that they've seen the people of the Emerald City plan to enslave the animal inhabitants of the Forest. Ruggedo claims that the Li-Mon-Eags will transform the animals into humans and march on the Emerald City and transform its inhabitants into animals, driving them into the forest. Ruggedo proves their power (for Kiki's the only one who knows "Pyrzqxgl") by having Kiki transform one of the leopard king Gugu's advisors, Loo the unicorn, into a man and back again. Gugu offers to meet with the leaders of the other animal tribes to decide on this matter of invasion.
Dorothy and the Wizard arrive with the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger in the Forest of Gugu during this council of war with a request for monkeys to train in time for Ozma's upcoming birthday party. Ruggedo recognizes his old enemies and inspires Kiki to begin transforming people and animals left and right — including Ruggedo, whom Kiki turns against by transforming him into a goose, a transformation that the Nome most fears because as a goose he might lay an egg. (In Baum's universe, all eggs are a deadly poison to nomes.)
The Wizard, whom Kiki transformed into a fox, follows the Li-Mon-Eag with his magic bag, the transformed Kiki, deep into the forest where he begins transforming monkeys into giant human soldiers. However, Kiki makes them so big that they cannot move through the trees. The Wizard, however, heard how to correctly pronounce "Pyrzqxgl" and first stops Kiki and Ruggedo by transforming them into a walnut and a hickory nut. Then the Wizard resumes his rightful form and changes Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion, the Hungry Tiger, and Gugu back to their forms, and he agrees to change the soldiers back into monkeys. The Wizard recruits several of the grateful monkeys and shrinks them down to bring back to the Emerald City and train.
On arriving there, Dorothy and the Wizard are dispatched to a magic island where Cap'n Bill and Trot went to get a magic flower for Ozma's birthday. However, the island itself causes anything living that touches it to take root there, and that is how the sailor and his friend are found when Dorothy and the Wizard arrive. The Wizard uses "Pyrzqxgl" to change Cap'n Bill and Trot into honeybees which narrowly avoid being eaten by the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger. When they are human again, Cap'n Bill retrieves the flower by strapping a wood plank onto his good leg, walks with that and his wooden leg onto the island, and retrieves the flower.
Back at the Emerald City, Ozma and her friends celebrate her birthday (though without quite the pomp and fanfare from The Road to Oz ) and then decide how to deal with the evil magicians transformed into nuts. The Wizard uses "Pyrzqxgl" to change them back to Kiki Aru and Ruggedo and make them thirsty enough to drink the Water of Oblivion, which will make them forget all that they have ever known. The now-blank slate Kiki Aru and Ruggedo will live in the Emerald City and learn to be good and kind.
The Emerald City of Oz is the sixth of L. Frank Baum's fourteen Land of Oz books. It was also adapted into a Canadian animated film in 1987. Originally published on July 20, 1910, it is the story of Dorothy Gale and her Uncle Henry and Aunt Em coming to live in Oz permanently. While they are toured through the Quadling Country, the Nome King is assembling allies for an invasion of Oz. This is the first time in the Oz series that Baum made use of double plots for one of the books.
Ozma of Oz: A Record of Her Adventures with Dorothy Gale of Kansas, Billina the Yellow Hen, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, 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 official third book of L. Frank Baum's Oz series. It was the first in which Baum was clearly intending a series of Oz books.
The Tin Woodman of Oz: A Faithful Story of the Astonishing Adventure Undertaken by the Tin Woodman, Assisted by Woot the Wanderer, the Scarecrow of Oz, and Polychrome, the Rainbow's Daughter is the twelfth book in the Oz series written by L. Frank Baum and was originally published on May 13, 1918. The Tin Woodman is reunited with his Munchkin sweetheart Nimmie Amee from the days when he was flesh and blood. This was a back-story from Baum's 1900 novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
Tik-Tok of Oz is the eighth Land of Oz book written by L. Frank Baum, published on June 19, 1914. The book has little to do with Tik-Tok and is primarily the quest of the Shaggy Man to rescue his brother, and his resulting conflict with the Nome King.
Princess Ozma is a fictional character from the Land of Oz, created by American author L. Frank Baum. She appears in every book of the Oz series except the first, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900).
Glinda is a fictional character created by L. Frank Baum for his Oz novels. She first appears in Baum's 1900 children's classic The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and is the most powerful sorceress in the Land of Oz, ruler of the Quadling Country South of the Emerald City, and protector of Princess Ozma.
The Land of Oz is a magical country introduced in the 1900 children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow.
The Deadly Desert is the magical desert in Nonestica that completely surrounds the fictional Land of Oz, which cuts it off from the rest of the world.
The Scarecrow is a character in the fictional Land of Oz created by American author L. Frank Baum and illustrator W.W. Denslow. In his first appearance, the Scarecrow reveals that he lacks a brain and desires above all else to have one. In reality, he is only two days old and merely naïve. Throughout the course of the novel, he proves to have the brains he seeks and is later recognized as "the wisest man in all of Oz," although he continues to credit the Wizard for them. He is, however, wise enough to know his own limitations and all too happy to hand the rulership of Oz, passed to him by the Wizard, to Princess Ozma, and become one of her trusted advisors, though he typically spends more time having fun than advising.
The Nome King is a fictional character created by American author L. Frank Baum. He is introduced in Baum's third Oz book Ozma of Oz (1907). He also appears in many of the continuing sequel Oz novels also written by Baum. Although the character of the Wicked Witch of the West is the most notable and famous Oz villain, it is actually the Nome King who is the most frequent antagonist throughout the entire book series.
The Good Witch of the North, sometimes named Locasta or Tattypoo, is a fictional character in the Land of Oz, created by American author L. Frank Baum. She is the elderly and mild-mannered Ruler of the Gillikin Country. Her only significant appearance in Baum's work is in Chapter 2 of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), in which she introduces Dorothy Gale to Oz and sends her to meet the Wizard, after placing a protective kiss on her forehead. She makes a brief cameo appearance at Princess Ozma's birthday party in The Road to Oz (1909), but is otherwise only mentioned elsewhere in the series.
Handy Mandy in Oz (1937) is the thirty-first of the Oz books created by L. Frank Baum and his successors, and the seventeenth written by Ruth Plumly Thompson. It was illustrated by John R. Neill.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, known in Japan as Ozu no Mahōtsukai, is a Japanese anime television series adaptation based on four of the original early 20th century Oz books by L. Frank Baum. In Japan, the series aired on TV Tokyo from 1986 to 1987. It consists of 52 episodes, which explain other parts of the Oz stories, including the events that happened after Dorothy returned home.
Dorothy of Oz is a 1989 children's novel written by L. Frank Baum's great-grandson Roger S. Baum. The book details Dorothy Gale returning to the Land of Oz when a Jester has been using the wand of the Wicked Witch of the West to take over the Land of Oz. The book was adapted into a film called Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return in 2014 by Clarius Entertainment.
Dorothy Must Die is a 2014 young adult book by Danielle Paige and her debut novel. The book, which was produced through Full Fathom Five, was released on April 1, 2014 through HarperCollins and was preceded by the novella No Place Like Oz.
The Cowardly Lion is a character in the fictional Land of Oz created by American author L. Frank Baum. He is depicted as an African lion, but like all animals in Oz, he can speak.
The Wicked Will Rise is a young adult novel by Danielle Paige, and the sequel to the 2014 book Dorothy Must Die. It was published by HarperCollins on March 30, 2015. It continues the story of high school girl Amy Gumm in her mission to assassinate Dorothy Gale, who has become twisted and evil.
Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz is an American animated children's television series loosely based on L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its subsequent books, as well as its 1939 film adaptation. The series debuted on Boomerang SVOD on June 29, 2017. The series was picked up for the second and third seasons. The series ended on July 31, 2020, lasting for three years.
