3.5 stars.

Another sweet little ‘road trip’ with yet another nice mixture of new characters mingled with old ones. My favorite little information: Toto can talk in Oz, just didn’t want to!

I teach creative writing to children and have used this book as an excellent model for the fantasy genre. It has all the great elements of a fantasy story—strange and enchanted happenings, magical creatures, faeries, and a wonderful quest.

Many of Baum's books are not so plot-driven; this, like "The Patchwork Girl of Oz" is an exception, and the story works marvelously. Fans of the Oz series will know that this book is a re-telling of "Ozma of Oz," but there are enough new characters, settings, and details to make it a fresh and rewarding tale. Certainly, old favorites such as Tik-Tok, the Nome King, Polychrome, and the Shaggy Man are at their best in this tale (one of the most delightful scenes is when Shaggy "breaks the law"), while new additions, Private Files and Quox the Dragon, bring much humor and whimsy.

Young children will certainly enjoy the test of the three maidens towards the end of the book. This books has a very cohesive direction (not always the case with Baum) and I especially enjoyed how each chapter title is alliterative (I suppose that's the English Lit major in me!). And, as usual, the John R. Neil's illustrations are wonderful; my favorite illustration is that of the greedy Nome King strutting out of his kingdom, his countless pockets filled with jewels.

This was a good story, and it moved at a good pace. I still feel like the stories without the original characters suffer a little bit, but this was probably one of my favorites that didn't star Dorothy, The Scarecrow, The Tin Man, or The Cowardly Lion.

This is one of the Oz books that I...keep forgetting entirely. Maybe it's that the cast isn't very compelling or memorable, and the plot is more disjointed than usual. I miss Dorothy and Ozma, so I might be a bit biased against Betsy Bobbin, I confess.

Arrivati all’ottavo libro della serie, con tanto di conclusione e poi rilancio manco fosse un franchise di cent’anni dopo, dovrei ormai averci fatto l’abitudine, ma l’approccio seriale tutto a base di personaggi che ritornano e si mescolano a quelli nuovi in un tripudio di rimandi e ricordi continua ad affascinarmi. Tic Toc di Oz segna il nuovo ritorno del Re Niomo, che è un po' il Thanos del secolo scorso. Il suo regno viene invaso da una serie di nuovi e vecchi personaggi bizzarri mossi dalle motivazioni più improbabili e lui cerca di respingerli e deviarli in territori vicini come se fosse un primo ministro alle prese con un flusso migratorio. Mi fa sorridere anche se non credo che sia un’allegoria voluta (ma nel libro precedente si parlava di sistemi carcerari, quindi vai a sapere). Comunque è un altro libro super appassionante, divertentissimo e pieno di idee bislacche.