Ozma of Oz: A Record of Her Adventures with Dorothy Gale of Kansas, the Yellow Hen, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, Tiktok, the Cowardly Lion, and the Hungry Tiger; Besides Other Good People Too Numerous to Mention Faithfully Recorded Herein

The third Oz book opens with Dorothy Gale overboard in a chicken coop, swept by storm from her uncle's ship to the shores of Ev. It's Baum at his most daring: the Nome King's cavern holds genuine dread, and Dorothy must outwit a villain who transforms her friends into ornaments before her eyes. Yet the terror is always leavened by wonder, a mechanical man who runs down, a tiger who yearns to eat everyone but refrains on principle, a princess who switches heads like hats. Billina the yellow hen provides tart commentary throughout, and when the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, and Cowardly Lion finally arrive, the adventure achieves its full, magnificent ridiculousness. This is Baum at his freest, his imagination unshackled, his Oz as strange and perilous as it is enchanting. Children sense the danger beneath the wonder. Adults recognize the satire. Everyone rides the whirlwind.