Book Review: The Road to Oz

The Shaggy Man with Donkey Head

The Road to Oz: In Which Is Related How Dorothy Gale of Kansas, The Shaggy Man, Button Bright, and Polychrome the Rainbow's Daughter Met on an Enchanted Road and Followed it All the Way to the Marvelous Land of Oz.  This is the fifth installment of the Oz series, published in 1909, and tells the story of Dorothy's fourth trip to OZ.  Previously she flew to Oz in a house, crossed the dessert on a carpet after being shipwrecked in a magical kingdom, and made a trek underground until Ozma brought her with the use of a magic belt.  In this book we are introduced to the shaggy man, Button-Bright, and Polychrome, the Rainbow's daughter.  We are also introduced to three new kingdoms, on of foxes, Foxville, one of donkeys, Dunkiton, (“All donkeys are born wise,” was the reply, “so the only school we need is the school of experience.  Books are only for those who know nothing, and so are obliged to learn things form other people.”)  and one of strange creatures which throw there heads at you, Scoodlers.  This book starts with there ending up on an enchanted road, which we later learn was sent by Ozma: Roads,” observed the shaggy man, “don’t go anywhere.  They stay in one place, so folks can walk on them.”  Shaggy man:  “But I’ve learned from long experience that every road leads somewhere, or there wouldn’t be any road, so it’s likely that if we travel long enough, my dear, we will come to some place or another in the end.  What place it will be we can’t even guess at this moment, but we’re sure to find out when we get there.”
 There are a couple of comments about money, which remind me of the United Order.  “Money,” declared the shaggy man, “makes people proud and haughty; I don’t want to be proud and haughty.  All I want is to have people love me; and as long as I own the Love Magnet everyone I meet is sure to love me dearly.”
“If we used money to buy things with, instead of love and kindness and the desire to please one another, then we should be no better than the rest of the world,” declared the Tin Woodman.  “Fortunately money is not known in the Land of Oz at all.  We have no rich, and no poor; for what one wishes the others all try to give him, in order to make him happy, and no one in all Oz cares to have more than he can use.”
There are also some comments about music, in the form of a man who has reeds in his lung and consequently makes music as he breathes.
The Musicker:
It isn’t a noise that you hear,
But music, harmonic and clear.
My breath makes me play
Like an organ, all day—
That bass not is in my left ear.

Music has charms, and it may
Soothe even the savage, they say;
So if savage you feel
Just list to my reel,
For sooth to say that’s the real way.

“Did you ‘vite the Musicker?” asked Button-Bright.
“No, because he would be too noisy, and might interfere with the comfort of others.  When music is not very good, and is indulged in all the time, it is better that the performer should be alone,” said the Princess.
There are a couple comments about friends and reputation. 
Dorothy: “The queerness doesn’t matter as long as they’re friends.”

“Hush, Dorothy,” whispered the Tiger; “you’ll ruin my reputation if you are not more discreet.  It isn’t what we are, but what folks think we are, that counts in this world.
 But the best quote is one I have tried to apply to my life.  Sometimes it best to just do it.  Johnny Dooit comes to help them figure out away over the desert.  He builds a sand sail, which uses gliders and a sail to float across the desert.
Johnny Dooit

The only way to do a thing
Is do it when you can,
And do it cheerfully, and sing
And work and think and plan.
The only real unhappy one
Is he who dares to shirk;
The only really happy one
Is he who cares to work.

I enjoyed this book, although I think the traveling OZ book is starting to get a little bit old.  All of the OZ books have had traveling as a part up to now.