The Royal Book of Oz: An Which the Scarecrow Goes to Search for His Family Tree and Discovers That He Is the Long Lost Emperor of the Silver Island

The Scarecrow has a crisis of identity. When Professor Wogglebug suggests he has no family, our beloved straw-stuffed hero decides to prove him wrong by searching for his family tree. What follows is a wonderfully absurd quest across Oz, as the Scarecrow travels back to the Munchkin farm where he was first brought to life, gathering Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion along the way. He encounters the A-B-Sea Serpent, tangled mud men, Sir Hokus of Pokes, and other marvels. But the real twist arrives when the Scarecrow discovers he is the long-lost Emperor of the Silver Island. Ruth Plumly Thompson wrote this in 1921, the first Oz book after L. Frank Baum's death, and she preserved every ounce of Baum's topsy-turvy magic while adding her own gleeful ridiculousness. The Scarecrow searching for his ancestry is inherently funny, and Thompson leans into that absurdity with joy. This is a book about belonging, about where we come from, and about the strange things we discover when we look inward. It captures that perfect Oz feeling: nothing makes sense, everything is delightful, and home might be closer than you think.