The authors of the last Oz book from Reilly & Lee returned with a second one from The International Wizard of Oz Club in 1980, and once again it’s very well written and a delightful read.
An annual event in the Emerald City is the Clover Fair, where many townspeople take part in competitions and games, and share refreshments, sort of like a 4-H Fair in America. A small girl named Emeralda decides to bring and sell limeade at the fair, and arrives with her pitcher already partly full of lime juice and sugar, but she still needs to fill it with water. Wandering the grounds of the Royal Palace, she comes to the Forbidden Fountain, but is too young to read the warnings about not drinking from it. Its waters will erase all memories, and it has been used in the past to thwart Oz enemies like the Nome King, but Emerelda fills her pitcher from it to make her limeade. Then she meets Ozma, who has taken a break in that part of the garden, and Ozma buys a glass of the limeade and drinks it after the child has wandered on. Suddenly without any memories, Ozma becomes frightened and flees the palace and then the city, where she feels in danger. Getting some boy’s clothes from a kind housewife, she decides to head north, and soon picks up a companion, a lamb, and later another one, a failed highwayman named Toby, who becomes a friend and protector. Many strange places in Oz are encountered, and then they meet up with Kabumpo, the Elegant Elephant. Kabumpo tries to help them at first, but begins to figure out who this boy calling himself Poppy really is. Soon both the elephant and Toby are suspecting each other of bad deeds, and everything gets even more complicated.
A fun story, a clever and unusual plot for an Oz book, and for me Ozma comes to life in a way I haven’t seen since her first appearance in Baum’s original story about her, his second Oz book, “The Marvelous Land of Oz.” Recommended.
