Book 2!
This is book two of the Oz series by L Frank Baum. It’s the direct sequel to the Wizard of Oz in that it takes place about half a generation after the events of that book and returns to the world left when Dorothy left. Dorothy is now a kind of mythic figure, and I don’t actually know these books well, so I don’t know if she’ll be back.
Instead, we are given Tip, a boy who lives with the witch Mombie. Tip builds a pumpkinheaded man for a friend and Mombie animates it with special powder. This is both familiar and unfamiliar to me as this book is clearly part of the background mythos to the movie “Return to Oz” which was one of my favorite movies as a kid. So this background maybe leads eventually to the book that that movie is based on, although I doubt it given how scary certain elements are (umm scary electroshock machines !!! — I know it works and this is a sensationalized version of events but this movie and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest taught me to be afraid of it long before Carrie Fisher taught me different). Or this movie simply took from various parts of the whole series — Ozma, the Gump, Jack, Mombie etc.
I think I will continue reading these to find out which it is.
Anyway this one is interesting, especially how different and kind of ridiculous the plot and the characters are, but what is great is the ways in which Baum creates a mythos for a magical world from generation to generation and allows us as reader to both see the orignary material and the ways in which it becomes mythic.
(Photo:https://www.amazon.com/Marvelous-Land-Oz-Books-Wonder/dp/0688054390/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=land+of+oz&qid=1558190042&rnid=2941120011&s=books&sr=1-1)