_The Gnome King of Oz_
by Ruth Plumley Thompson
After reading so many heavier tomes focused on Hitler and the Nazis, I decided
it was time to return to my sequential journey through the Oz books. So I've
gotten to book 21, which involves the Gnome King--again!
Scraps, the Patchwork Girl of Oz, had been turning cartwheels and thinking up
rhymes and songs in Ozma's gardens when she was unceremoniously kidnapped and
carried off to Patch, a small kingdom across the Winkie Country where courtiers
Piecer and Scrapper intended to make her Queen of the Quilties. But the rules
under which the Queen of Patch must live were unpleasant, leading her to
appreciate why Cross Patch, her predecessor, had gone to pieces and needed to be
replaced.
When a boy from Philadelphia in the United States arrived in reluctant company
of Ruggedo, the former King of the Gnomes of Ev, Scraps and Peter realize they
must escape from the castle of Patch and hurry to the Emerald City so as to warn
Ozma of her danger, for Ruggedo, remembering how often he's been foiled in his
attempts to steal back his Magic Belt and destroy Oz, is again intent on
revenge. But can they make it in time? For Ruggedo has a magic cloak that
makes him almost completely invisible and will carry him almost anywhere, and he
has a head start!
Filled with the whimsy and delightful wordplay that both L. Frank Baum and Ruth
Plumley Thompson used so well, this was a fun book to read. I got it with
several other books, so this was the first time I've actually read this
particular story, and I loved it. Certainly the meeting Peter has with Kum
Aparty gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "lending a helping hand"!
I read this in the Del Rey paperback edition. Again, unfortunately, I'm unsure
as to whether anyone has put this book into accessible format. We know that all
of Baum's books in the series are available in a compendium in both audio and
e-text formats, but Thompson's additions to the series are harder to pin down.
Am considering putting them into electronic braille format. Anyone know a
direct braille program for Windows 10?
Bonnie L. Sherrell
Teacher at Large
"Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very
wise cannot see all ends." LOTR
"Don't go where I can't follow."
We gave the Goblin King control of our nation!
