Grampa In Oz

When King Fumbo of Ragbad loses his head in a storm, it's up of Prince Tatters and the wonderfully eccentric Grampa to find it. But this is Oz, where a simple quest becomes a cascade of absurdity: they befriend Bill, a live iron weathercock with strong opinions, stumble into a Wizard's Garden where a girl made entirely of flowers named Urtha awaits, and fall headlong into adventures that involve exploding, underwater sailing, and more than one brush with catastrophe. Ruth Plumly Thompson was just hitting her stride in this fourteenth Oz adventure, and she brings a manic energy and relentless pun barrage that makes every chapter feel like a fireworks display you can't look away from. Along the way, they encounter Dorothy herself and a Forgetful Poet, all searching for the missing princess of Perhaps City, who's been mysteriously condemned to marry a monster. The prose crackles with Thompson's particular genius for the absurd, and Grampa himself is the kind of grumpy, wise, utterly lovable companion who turns every disaster into comedy. This is Oz at its most unhinged and most joyful.