Maybe part of why I like Ozma of Oz best is that there is no old guy taking care of Dorothy and the kids and solving all the problems in that one. I mean, no shade on the Shaggy Man. I love the Shaggy Man and his hazy origins. He seems to have come from our non-magical world, but has done a lot of traveling, is in possession of the Love Magnet (a fairy gadget if ever there was one), and doesn’t even blink at the magic of Johnny Dooit–who knows where he ran into him. But of course, Shaggy Man has to be the man and take the brunt of the discomfort and responsibility in every circumstance. I just like when kids have adventures on their own. I do enjoy seeing the characters making plans and solving problems together, and should probably try that scene in my own work. Baum wrote road trip stories all the time and is so comfortable with this mode, and with the episodic nature of the narrative. 

But people in Oz don’t die?? Of natural causes, at least, since capital punishment does exist, and also people like the bad sorcerer fall off precipices occasionally?? This is another one of those instances like “Toto never bites” where Baum makes the statement and almost instantly contradicts it, so that I almost can’t believe he’s not doing it on purpose. But there are too many gaps in the logic to mention…Parentage is extremely mysterious in Oz, so the fact that no one ever dies has not disrupted hereditary monarchy. Who knows what happened to Ozma’s father and grandfather, who are mentioned explicitly (they could not have died, surely) or her theoretical mother and grandmother who never get mentioned at all. Billina’s chicks evidently have no father, unless she came equipped already. 

I did like that the Good Witch of the North gets a passing mention here, since she basically disappeared from the series after giving Dorothy the shoes. But then the rulers of the four sub-countries of Oz are mentioned as though they are different (all male) people, when I thought at least the Gillikins and the Quadlings were nominally ruled by the good witches. Ozma courteously invites the people who transformed Shaggy’s head into a donkey to her party but refuses to invite the Musicker (Ozma: “Not that guy, he’s annoying as hell!”). Consistency and logic are not Baum’s strong suits at all. They’re not what support the world-building here. What does the work is a real inventiveness of imagination, like the Musicker and the Scoodlers. I did laugh my head off (no pun intended) every time they yelled “Soup!” 

Ozma’s birthday, like the jewel-encrusted grandeur of the palace, is clearly designed to appeal to kids and particularly to little girls, and I find that quality endearing in Baum, however gendered and misguided some of his notions may be.