The Wonder City of Oz
Children's novel Fantasy | |
Publisher | Reilly & Lee |
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Publication date | 1940 |
Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
Pages | 318 pp. |
Preceded by | Ozoplaning with the Wizard of Oz |
Followed by | The Scalawagons of Oz |
The Wonder City of Oz (1940) is the thirty-fourth in the series of
Tone
With The Wonder City of Oz, Neill introduced a change in tone that continued through his subsequent books. Neill's Oz books "are highly imaginative, but the imagination is undisciplined; each book, in fact, has enough ideas to fill several."[2] Neill's Emerald City has skyscrapers and gas stations. Normally inanimate objects act alive: houses talk and fight, shoes sing (they have tongues), and clocks run.
The plot
Jenny Jump captures a leprechaun named Siko Pompus (apparently a pun on "psychopomp") and forces him to make her into a fairy; but he only does half the job before escaping. Jenny then jumps to Oz using her half-fairy gifts. She lands in the carriage of Princess Ozma during a parade — and quickly expresses her desire to be a queen herself.
Jenny displays a bold and tempestuous nature; when she loses her temper she spits flames from her mouth. Yet she is also enterprising and resourceful; she soon sets up a Style Shop with a magic turnstile which gives fashion makeovers (the turnstile turns styles). Jenny half-adopts a
Jenny's disruptive nature quickly becomes apparent. In response, the
Jenny is so irate at this outcome that she causes chaos in the city: she releases the
Finally, Jenny's leprechaun godfather gives her back her fairy gifts, in externalized and material forms: "an ivory-handled eyeglass for one eye" that provides fairy sight, and a pair of rose-colored gloves, "a golden slipper for her left foot, and a pair of thistle-down earmuffs" that enable her other fairy powers, whenever she needs them.
Editorial interference
The Ozlection storyline, with its shoes-as-votes scenario, was not written by Neill but by an anonymous editor who found portions of Neill's version of the book inadequate. None of the incidents in this plot thread are illustrated by Neill.[3] Baum biographer Katharine M. Rogers points out this storyline as a particular example of the unbelievable situations in Neill's books.[4]
Geography
In a prefatory note addressed to the book's child readers, Neill states that he and his family live in Flanders, New Jersey, which he describes as "on top of the Schooley Mountains and the Jenny Jump Mountains are really truly mountains right next to us." He characterizes them as "wonderful mountains for fairies to hide in." As Neill indicates, Jenny Jump Mountain is a real place, located in northwestern New Jersey in the Jenny Jump State Forest.
References
- ^ John R. Neill, The Wonder City of Oz, Chicago, Reilly & Lee, 1940; New York, Books of Wonder, 1990.
- ^ David L. Greene and Dick Martin, The Oz Scrapbook, New York, Random House, 1977; p. 77.
- ISBN 978-1-47210-988-0. Retrieved 10 February 2024.
- ^ Rogers, Katharine M. (2002). L. Frank Baum: Creator of Oz. Da Capo Press. p. 251.
External links
- On The Wonder City of Oz
- The Wonder City of Oz title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
The Oz books | ||
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Previous book: Ozoplaning with the Wizard of Oz |
The Wonder City of Oz 1940 |
Next book: The Scalawagons of Oz |