A review by tori_storydelver
The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum

3.0

Although The Marvelous Land of Oz is still my favorite book of the series The Emerald City of Oz is a close second. Finally, L. Frank Baum made his writing a little more complex. Throughout the story he is going back and forth between Dorothy's journeys and the Nome King's plans for taking over Oz. Yes, you heard me right, there is actually an antagonist through the whole story! How they resolve the problem however comes just as quickly and conveniently as you can expect from an Oz story at this point.

Without giving too much away, Aunt Em and Uncle Henry join Dorothy in the Land of Oz. Aunt Em stands out as one of the best characters in this story because of her realistic comments about the crazy things happening in the "fairy land" that is Oz. This sets up Dorothy giving her aunt and uncle a tour of Oz, and along the way they run into several never before heard of inhabitants of the country. Although, it seems Dorothy would have ran into these little towns during her first visit to Oz since she is going back to the Winkie's country from Oz. Also, Ozma is a completely different character than she has been in the other books. She doesn't seem to care about what happens to Oz or its inhabitants and has now become a pacifist. She is completely unconcerned despite knowing that the Nome King and his growing army are planning to attack Oz and enslave all of its people. The biggest disappointment is that despite having introduced several magical ways they could have defeated the Nome King and his armies peacefully in previous stories, Baum makes up a new magical thing to solve all their problems. The very last chapter sets this book up as the end of the series, and I would be happy with the Oz books ending here, as I suspect L. Frank Baum would have been, but it appears I am not even half way through the series yet. I hope (beyond reason) that the rest of the books are at least as good as this one, or maybe just not as bad as the two previous books!