Baum wrote many other stories, although none of them reached the popularity of the Oz novels. He wrote two books, titled The Sea Fairies and Sky Island, featuring a diminuitive girl nicknamed Trot and her guardian, the old seaman called Cap'n Bill, as the two went on strange faerie adventures under water and into the sky.
In the second volume, the pair encounter two familiar faces from the Oz novels, the eternal lost boy Button-Bright (who is slightly older, and considerably less stupid, than he was in his appearance in The Road to Oz) and Polychrome herself, who is shown to be a far more powerful and dynamic figure than previously seen. Polychrome's presence and role in Sky Island is, in fact, a major influence in my interpretation of her in Polychrome.
The two books did not sell nearly as well as the Oz books – though it is somewhat amusing to me to note that if I could sell as many copies of my books as Baum did of The Sky Fairies in its first year of release – 11,750 – I'd be earning out every one of my books in the first year and getting significant royalties besides. And these sales were in hardcover, note, not in paperback!
Despite the lukewarm (for him) sales of the books, Baum received letters from fans who did very much like Trot and Cap'n Bill… and wanted them to visit Oz. Since he had previously acquiesced to the fact that Oz was with him to stay, this was an excellent way for him to make use of previous material, tell an adventure in strange new lands, and yet (hopefully) get the sales that an Oz book could expect.
Trot and Cap'n Bill go for a row across the bay for a little picnic, but on the way back encounter yet another of Baum's devices to transfer his heroes to out of the way places: a great whirlpool which captures the rowboat and drags it – and its passengers – down into the depths. Fortunately, Trot's prior adventures and, possibly, the time and place of her birth have made her blessed by the Sea Fairies, and rather than be crushed and drowned, both she and Cap'n Bill are tossed up into an underwater cavern.
Shortly thereafter, another strange castaway appears from the water: a bizarre creature called an Ork, who was caught in the downdraft of the air current that helped form the whirlpool. The Ork is something like a four-footed ostrich with a parrot's beak, a brilliant crest of scarlet feathers on the head, four circular wings (described as being something like a cross between a drumhead and a salad bowl), and a propeller-shaped tail. The three explore the cave and find that it has a rear passage that leads deeper into the earth.
Baum's description of their subsequent passage through the earth is heavily atmospheric, conveying the oppressive sense of being trapped under the earth along with the majesty of vast black spaces beneath the ground. Eventually, however, the adventurers reach the end of the passage, at the bottom of some deep hole or well; they can glimpse the sunlight above but cannot climb to it.
The Ork, however, is a very powerful flyer, and his propeller-like tail can generate astonishing amounts of thrust. He manages to fly all three of them out of the narrow well.
Their relief at being finally above ground is tempered with the discovery that they are on an apparently deserted island – one with magical berries. One of these berries shrinks the poor Ork to the size of a bumblebee, depriving them of his impressive capabilities.
The lone inhabitant of the island, Pessim the Observer, is a sour-tempered man but nonetheless gives them one piece of useful advice – how to tell the berries that shrink from the berries that make the eater grow. Trot and Cap'n Bill then make clever use of this knowledge by first returning the Ork to full size, and then shrinking themselves so as to allow the Ork to be able to carry them as far as they wish, also bringing with them several of the growing berries to reverse the change.
They reach a new land, the land of Mo, where they encounter an old friend, Button-Bright. Discovering that the Land of Oz lies not too far away across the Deadly Desert, they enlist the aid of several birds, who Cap'n Bill causes to grow to immense size with the growth berries, to fly them across.
Unfortunately, they have landed in a section of Oz called Jinxland, which is almost completely cut off from the rest of Oz, and is in fact a relic of the Bad Old Days – complete with a very nasty king and a genuine, powerful, extremely wicked witch…
The Scarecrow of Oz is in many ways one of the strongest of the Oz books. We are introduced to a (to readers of Oz) new pair of main characters whose prior backstory makes them feel far more solid and alive than ones invented solely for a new book. Trot and Cap'n Bill are strong characters, their personalities already well defined and quite distinct from those of some of our prior friends. Bill himself is an unusual character from the point of view of the Oz books; unassuming, competent, quiet, and resourceful, Bill is one of the closest approaches to a father figure that Baum ever gives us, while little Trot combines some of Dorothy's can-do spirit with a gentleness that is different from that of our previous main heroine.
The Ork himself is another of Baum's strongest creations. He is not only physically unique, but also quick of mind and quite willing and able to learn. The Ork grows as a character, perhaps more than the humans do, and in the end he shows vast forethought by returning unexpectedly with a large number of his fellow Orks, just in time to save the Scarecrow from a very gruesome fate indeed.
The story itself is stronger because as with the prior book it avoids being merely a travelogue, but unlike Tik-Tok of Oz it has far less of the "mood-whiplash", being a more serious story throughout (though still with much of the whimsical "Ozzy" touch that made Baum's work a success). The eponymous Scarecrow doesn't show up until much of the book is already past, as an emissary sent by Glinda to assist the unfortunate visitors to Jinxland (and, incidentally, to bring the rule of Ozma directly to Jinxland, including the elimination of the abuse of magic).
The Scarecrow, in keeping with his prior characterization, is shown to be clever but sometimes overconfident, and too dependent upon the partial invulnerability that being a living straw man confers upon him. He requires help from the main characters – again making this a stronger book. The Scarecrow is not a deus-ex-machina and while he has the means to solve their problems, the methods and actual application of those means requires more than just his own resources.
With respect to the development of Polychrome, this novel didn't contribute a great deal. Perhaps the only noticeable bit comes during Ugu's furious rant at Mombi for overstepping her bounds, where he lists off his various viceroys and specifically mentions the Wicked Witch of Jinxland (originally called "Blinkie" for a missing eye – I modified the name to "Blinkara"). The spirit and energy of The Scarecrow of Oz, however, was strongly in mind as I wrote.
I highly recommend this, the ninth of the Oz novels!
Your comments or questions welcomed!
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