'Why, we've had a revolution, Your Majesty - as you ought to know very well,' replied the man 'and since you went away the women have been running things to suit themselves. Just when it seems the underlying message borders on sexist, the story redeems itself: When General Jinjur's initial attack is a success, the women put every man in the city to work making meals and tending to the cleaning. She plans to invade the city and use its gemstones to make sparkly jewelry and spend the treasury to buy a dozen gowns for every woman in the army. Jinjur feels the Emerald City has been ruled by men for too long. Among them is General Jinjur and her army of women soldiers. While some familiar characters make appearances, many new characters are introduced.

Tip travels with a most peculiar cast of enchanted comrades. So an hour passed away, during which the silence was only broken by the bubbling of the pot hissing on the flames. Then he would glance at the stern and wrinkled features of the witch and wish he were any place but in that dim and smoky kitchen, where even the shadows cast by the candle upon the wall were enough to give one the horrors. Tip wriggled around upon his stool and stared a while at the kettle, which was beginning to bubble. Magic lovers will delight in the presence of wizards and witches, potions and powders, tonics and spells. 'If I remember rightly, the penalty for chopping leaves from the royal palm-tree is to be killed seven times and afterward imprisoned for life.' The Land of Oz offers the same type of topsy-turvy logic that permeates all of the Oz books. Determined not to spend the rest of his life as a garden ornament, Tip took the pumpkin man he created and set off on an adventure. Mombi was not amused by Tip's practical joke, so she decided to concoct a spell to turn the boy into a marble statue.

One day, Tip got the idea to startle Mombi, so he took a large pumpkin from the pumpkin patch, carved a face into it, then put it atop a body made of sticks and dressed in bright clothing. In the northern Land of Oz, there lived a boy called Tip who was reared by a haggard old woman named Mombi. Click here to watch a video review of this book on my channel, From Beginning to Bookend.

The marvellous land of oz