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The Lost Princess of Oz

by L. Frank Baum

Other authors: See the other authors section.

Series: Oz (11), Oz : Famous Forty (book 11)

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1,3721313,511 (3.82)15
When Princess Ozma and all the magic of the Land of Oz are mysteriously stolen away, Dorothy and the other residents of Oz are determined to find their missing ruler and the thief responsible for her disappearance.
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» See also 15 mentions

Showing 1-5 of 13 (next | show all)
I don't know why, but this one simply didn't capture my imagination like some of the others. Maybe because, at this point in the series, the whole journey thing has been done to death. This one has Dorothy and the gang trying to find Ozma (and various magical items) which had been stolen. Meh. ( )
  AliceAnna | Jan 16, 2024 |
After the one-two punch of reading The Scarecrow of Oz and Rinkitink aloud to my three-year-old, I felt like I was missing the Oz characters. Sure, they showed up in those massive celebrations at the end of each book (by now a traditional way for Baum to squeeze in all your favorite characters) but I missed all those folks, you know? Baum must have felt the same way (or, rather, known his readers would) because Lost Princess of Oz contrives to include a large number of familiar characters.

The premise here is that overnight, a number of things vanish: Glinda's Great Book of Records, the magical tools of both Glinda and the Wizard, Ozma's Magic Picture, (in the far-off Yip Country) a Magic Dishpan... and Ozma herself! Our characters must search the country without any of their customary powers at their disposal. They divide into four search parties, one for each of the four quadrants of Oz. Without any actual leads, their plans are apparently to just wander around looking for stuff; it seems to me that had Ozma been in the Gillikin Country, being searched by the Shaggy Man, his brother, Tik-Tok, and Jack Pumpkinhead, she might be lost still. Thankfully, she turns out to be in the Winkie Country, which is (wow what a coincidence) being search by the largest group, consisting of Dorothy, Trot, Betsy Bobbin, Button-Bright, the Wizard, Scraps the Patchwork Girl, the Cowardly Lion, the Woozy, the Sawhorse, and Toto. As they go, even more join the group: the Frogman, Cayke the Cookie Cook, and the Lavender Bear.

For the most part, Baum does an okay job by this large cast of characters. The Wizard gets some good problem-solving moments, and Scraps's sideways logic also comes in handy at times. Button-Bright's ability to get lost actually turns out to be a key plot point. The animal characters don't contribute much to the plot, but there are a couple scenes where they talk to each other a lot; in fact, Toto talks an unprecedented amount here, a marked contrast to his reticence to speak in Tik-Tok. The Woozy never really does anything, though; I have a feeling that Baum included him just because Neill like drawing him. (In many of the books, Neill includes the Woozy in crowd scenes where he is not mentioned in the text; this book has an illustration of the Woozy wearing an apron and doing dishes in the Magic Dishpan! Not a thing that actually happens but a delight to look at.)

The main issue is that having all three girls in the group is pretty pointless: narratively Dorothy, Trot, and Betsy are the same, and thus Trot and Betsy end up largely not doing anything. I think if Baum wanted to flesh out the relationship between the three girls (which would be a fun thing to do), he would have had to do something like make it be just the three of them. Or if he wanted to give Trot and Betsy something to do, he should have sent them out with other search parties (and given those search parties something to do). The working title was Three Girls in Oz, but reading the finished book, you can see why he dropped it.

Anyway, the whole thing is good fun. It does sort of beggar belief that Dorothy's search party finds Ozma in the third place they look after setting out in a totally random direction, and some of the rules Baum imposes on this "mystery" don't really make any sense (the characters conclude that Ozma must be in Oz because no one can cross the Deadly Desert... two books ago, Trot herself flew into Oz over the Deadly Desert!), and Baum seems to forget how the Magic Belt works (but if it did work here as it had in Ozma of Oz, the book would end around chapter five).

But it does the thing I like an Oz book to do: interesting places to visit, weird problems for the characters to reason their ways out of, good interactions between the characters. The misdirection of the clues about where Ozma is according to the truth-speaking Little White Bear are pretty cleverly done. I like any Oz book with Button-Bright comedy. I don't know what's up with the "Toto loses his growl subplot" but it is entertaining. The Frogman is an interesting character... though my favorite new character was Corporal Waddle, the little toy brown bear soldier who takes himself and his useless popgun very seriously. Stay tuned for Corporal Waddle in Oz?

My son seemed to enjoy it: lots of characters doing fun things. When I asked, he said, "I liked it the same as Rinkitink. I liked the good parts but didn't like the bad parts." The "bad parts" turned out to be the passage detailing how Ugu the Shoemaker traveled around Oz stealing all the magical implements and kidnapping Ozma. He also began telling me about his own oz book, [His Name] in Oz, which is exactly the same as The Lost Princess of Oz, except that he presses a button that defeats Ugu the Shoemaker so no one gets kidnapped! But more on that book in future installments...

One other thing to note: this is the first set-in-Oz novel Baum wrote after the publication of Tik-Tok, which included for the first time detailed maps of Oz. You can tell, because the descriptions of Oz geography suddenly become much more detailed and consistent here; Baum talks about rivers in the Winkie Country are, and what characterizes different regions of it. He continues to pay attention to geography in this way over the remaining three of his Oz novels, unlike the somewhat ad hoc way he had described things previously.
  Stevil2001 | Jul 23, 2022 |
L. Frank Baum is an author I have read many times since I first discovered him in second grade. I find that his books stand up to the test of time and they are books that I enjoy re-reading. Some of them are stronger than others but as a whole I quite enjoy both the stories and characters. ( )
  KateKat11 | Sep 24, 2021 |
I'd finally broken through the long dark night of poor Oz books with 'Rinkitink in Oz', the books still fail to work as delights in their own right, but at least Baum feels a little free to actually experiment with his writing again.

'The Lost Princess of Oz' has a good plot to begin with - Ozma is missing, perhaps taken, and with her all of the magical accoutrements in the land! Glinda's record book and instruments as well as the Wizards black bag and Ozma's magic picture have all been stolen in the night. Readers of the whole series will notice one big item missing in that list that is conveniently unknown to the thief. Meanwhile, in a hitherto unmentioned town in the middle of Winkie country Cayke the Cookie Cook is missing her jeweled dishpan and enlists a haughty talking Frog to help her find it.

All of the residents of the royal palace turn out to help search for Ozma, the party containing the most interesting characters bizarrely are the ones who head on the right track to intercept Cayke and find the thief. Of course such a plot cannot be allowed to be solved without some overpowered magical artifact that prevents any cleverness from being displayed.

Despite the usual forced ending, I like 'Lost Princess' better than many of the Oz sequels because without stupid magic the story is allowed to unfold in a natural way and the focus of seeking Ozma puts digressions at a minimum. The size of the party prevents character development. Our travelers come across many other unexplored areas and meet new friends, including a kingdom of teddy bears, but there is more charm than irritation.

Oz

Next: 'The Tin Woodman of Oz'

Previous: 'Rinkitink in Oz' ( )
  ManWithAnAgenda | Feb 18, 2019 |
There's a very real chance that this is the best book in the entire series: it's adventurous, funny, reflective, strange, and just a tiny bit meta-fictional ahead of its time. If the Oz books had stopped here, it certainly would have been L. Frank Baum's crowning achievement. Regardless, though, it is far and away better than any sequel written by any of his successors, as well as most of his own both before and afterward.

If your kid has never read an Oz book, give them this one. ( )
  saroz | Nov 3, 2018 |
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» Add other authors (9 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
L. Frank Baumprimary authorall editionscalculated
Davies, CaitlinNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Glassman, PeterAfterwordsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Herring, MichaelCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Lowe, WesCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Neill, John ReaIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Smith, Mark F.Narratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Dedication
This Book is Dedicated
To My Granddaughter
OZMA BAUM
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There could be no doubt of the fact: Princess Ozma, the lovely girl ruler of the Fairyland of Oz, was lost.
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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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When Princess Ozma and all the magic of the Land of Oz are mysteriously stolen away, Dorothy and the other residents of Oz are determined to find their missing ruler and the thief responsible for her disappearance.

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