Reviews: (by author)

Smith, Sherwood. The Emerald Wand of Oz. Illus. William Stout. HarperCollins: New York, 2005. $16.99

Two sisters embark on a whirlwind tour of Oz in this newest addition to the venerable Oz canon. Dori and Em are blown away from their Kansas home and dropped into a field of flowers as their voyage begins. Dori, the elder sister, quickly adapts to her magically transformed surroundings. After all, she has always believed in the literal truth of the Oz books. Em, on the other hand, remains in denial even when they stumble across a herd of multi-colored unicorns! By grudging degrees, Em learns to accommodate the unacceptable as the girls set off on a fateful quest across the Land of Oz. It seems that the Wicked Witch of the West left behind a singularly uncharismatic niece to carry on her legacy of cruelty and wickedness. Bastinda has unscrupulously managed to capture the "smarts" of Princess Ozma and Glinda the Good in a magic emerald wand, thereby turning all the flesh-and-blood inhabitants of Oz into spiritless zombies. To return to Kansas, Dori and Em must restore the spellbound rulers to their senses. They soon join forces with Rik, a young Nome prince of dubious character whose interest in the wand seems suspiciously self-serving. Later on the trio encounters a host of favorites from previous Oz books including the Scarecrow, Jack Pumpkinhead, Scraps, the Patchwork Girl and Bungle the Glass Cat. Into the land of the Winkies they go, where the Tin Woodman now lies rusting in his own tears and the Winged Monkeys are once again feckless slaves of the (new and unimproved) Wicked Witch. Oh, my! The L. Frank Baum Family Trust has granted author Sherwood Smith an official license naming her Royal Historian of Oz. She executes her commission admirably in this volume that manages to be both a tribute to earlier histories of Oz and a bang-up adventure in its own right. Both L. Frank Baum and Ruth Plumly Thompson would certainly approve. As contemporary descendants of the original Dorothy Gale, the two sisters, Dori and Em, are at once refreshing and pleasantly familiar. The dynamic between their characters provides a nice counterpoint to the various magical goings-on, threading the fantastic with more mundane human concerns. William Stout's splendid illustrations recall the early work of Joseph Clement Coll, Roy G. Krenkel and Lee Brown Coye. Don't be surprised to find yourself back in Oz with Dori and Em again someday. This is one story that will never grow too old.

Mark Janssen, January 2006

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