This is the book that halted my sharing the Oz series with my children. While this book was by far superior to "The Royal Book of Oz", it was not as able to keep my kids' attention captivated enough. I finally decided to just finish it myself, so that I could be returned to the bookshelf. Thompson certainly is coming into her own as Oz's Royal Historian, but to me her style is nowhere near as charming and fun as Baum's. Don't get me wrong, she has great ideas of how to craft a fairy tale, but th...

When the Scarecrow returns to the corn field where Dorothy first found him, he discovers that his old bean pole is magical. Sent tumbling far below the surface of Oz down to the Silver Islands, the Scarecrow discovers that he is supposedly the re-created Emperor Chang Wang Woe of this distant kingdom. But is the Scarecrow ready to give up his life in Oz?I swear I've read this story with a different title.

I didn’t enjoy this as much as the other Oz books. It started slow and I wasn’t fond of the initial main characters or the core plot.

Miss Thompson did an amazing thing in the Royal Book of Oz. She took a known and beloved world and character list and transposed it into something new and strange and interesting. In this book she looses that momentum, by sliding back into old tropes. In Fact she only has one new and exciting portion in this book, that that is in the land of Illume, with the candle people. Thompson's strength is in the surreal, and unfortunately in this book she relied far too heavily on the old OZ feel. That co...

Kabumpo of Oz is a big improvement over The Royal Book of Oz, Thompson's first. There are a few mistakes (the constant misspellings of "Gillikin" as "Gilliken" and "Nome" as "gnome", for instance), but Thompson does a nice job using Ruggedo the Nome King as the villain and introducing several other excellent characters: Kabumpo the Elegant Elephant, Peg Amy the wooden doll, and Wag the rabbit, whose constant spoonerisms are very amusing.

Okay, Thompson redeemed herself with this book. No more racism or weird, unfinished plot lines - this is a solid entry into the Oz canon. It does not 'feel' as if it were written by Baum, which is the only downfall of the novel. Thompson has created several memorable characters and 'areas' of Oz that we've never seen before - and although some are relatively stupid and too short - they're perfectly suited for inclusion into the most magical place on earth. Illumi-Nation with it's candlewick peop...

I definitely found this more enjoyable than Royal Book of Oz. The new characters like Kabumpo (the original sassy gay friend) and Wag and pre-transformation Peg Amy were all really delightful. I also loved the Cottabus, and wish he’d returned. The story moved swiftly, had life not been hectic, I would have finished it much faster. My chief complaint is that we really had two A stories that got blended together. I actually wanted more of Ruggedo and the Emerald City caper, but because of the equa...

The prince of Pumperdink is celebrating his 18th birthday again when the cake explodes and a cryptic scroll appears directing him to marry or his kingdom will disappear. He sets off with his friend, Kabumpo the elephant, to find the proper princess. Meanwhile, Ruggedo is up to his old antics, turning the Emerald City upside down.After the disastrous first attempt to continue the Oz books after L. Frank Baum's death, Ms. Thompson returns to the familiar formula in this installment, definitely for...

This was such a delightful entry in the Oz series!! As usual, new characters are introduced in the book: of course, we have the Elegant Elephant, Kabumpo. We are also introduced to Peg Amy, and Wag the Rabbit, among others. Dorothy, Ozma, Glinda, as well as other past characters from previous books are all back. This is the second book written by Ms. Thompson that I have read, and so far, her story telling is not disappointing at all. She really has captured the essence of what Baum originally h...

I must say this is the strangest book of Oz yet. I know the series was out for almost 20 years at this time but this is also the most adult book in the series. This book deals with marriage, kidnapping, toucher, war, drugs, and breaking laws. It was strange reading this one. They are still very progressive books and Ruth did keep up with Frank's world I did enjoy it. There are still moments in this book that it would not be published in today's world, due to the old terminologies. Still a fun bo...

This is what should have been Thompson's debut. It's a solid narrative that feels more like an Oz story, if in a different writing style than Baum. While you might see the twist involving her from a mile away I did like the character of Peg Amy, a living doll that seems to have vague memories of a past life. The Prince is an amusing character who all sorts of bad things happen to; the best scene involving him has to be when he asks Princess Ozma to marry him and gets a blunt, stinging rejection....

Light years better than the Royal Book of Oz, Thompson has started to get the feel for Baum's incredible world. The new characters are diverse and interesting, and the overall story was good. It still does not have the elegant pace of the original Oz books, but it gives me a lot of hope for the rest of her works.

Thompson's Oz is a lot more conventional than Baum's--here we get a classic story of a prince needing to find the right princess to marry. There are also some annoying aspects to her writing, especially Wag's constant spoonerisms here. But the story of Peg Amy is very sweet.

Another book that you would swear was written by Baum!

The best written, most charming and coherent since the 1st--and not even written by Baum (written by his daughter)! So much fun!

3.5 stars. A huge improvement over The Royal Book of Oz, Kabumpo in Oz brings us a cast of lovable new characters and marks the return of the greatest villain of the Oz universe. Prince Pompa of Pumperdink has to find a princess to marry in order to keep his little corner of Oz from disappearing, so he sets out to the Emerald City to propose to Princess Ozma with his friend Kabumpo the Elegant Elephant. Meanwhile, things are not well in the Emerald City. Crafty old Ruggedo, former Gnome King, ha...

Talk about your giant step up from the Royal Book! Even if the Royal Book weren't full of racism, this one would be better. I love Kabumpo in Oz.I love Peg Amy the most. Also, I love Kabumpo, and I like Pompa, especially bald!Pompa, and I like the hilarious runaway plot of land. Ruggedo is back and at his best (slash worst). Wag is great too. I do not object to the romance, even though Baum rarely included romantic plots. I like that Scraps has a bit that is more than just the standard character...

This is the first Oz book claimed to have been written by Thompson (though I suspect the previous one was too, despite Baum's name on it). It's only okay. There are some interesting parts - the runaway country, for example, and the candle people. But a lot of it reminds me of what the Disney Channel does with Winnie the Pooh - if you throw in enough "Hoo boohoo hoo!" lines from Tigger, it sound like the story without having to have any substance. In this instance, it seems that characters are ju...

Not bad. This was Ruth Plumly Thompson's second Oz book after the death of creator L. Frank Baum, and the first under her own name. A birthday party disaster in the kingdom of Pumperdink sends the prince on a quest to find -- and Marry -- Princess Ozma. At the same time, Ruggedo the Nome King is planning his latest assault of the people of Oz. Like most of the books, this story introduces several new characters to the Oz lore, and some of them are fairly charming (although Peg Amy kind of loses

This was an interesting read but it definitely ended up losing a bunch of its goodness in my opinion due to it being an Oz book. Instead this definitely could have been a fairytale re-telling for towards the end it reminded me a lot about "Beauty and the Beast" although with a twist. The characters following Ms. Ruth's writing have a bit more personality than the regular Oz books while being more human. And yet within this writing you see the same repetitive formula and character building as wi

This is the best of the Thompson Oz books, but that's not saying much.ETA: I reread this one Thompson book as part of my grand reread of Oz books, and it reminded me of how I just don't especially care for Thompson's style. Kabumpo is irritating and histrionic, he needs to take a big chill pill. And the travelogue portion of the book shows none of Baum's inventiveness: "Look, it's a kingdom of candles/numbers/whatever that are alive, let's spend two pages of puns with them and then run away!"

An improvement over Thompson's first Oz book because this one did not have any overt racism. However, it was a bit manic, with lots of weird characters introduced, then dropped, kind of like Baum's earlier Oz stories, in which these characters were introduced seemingly just for the puns, but without really moving the plot forward. I expect that as the Thompson contributions continued, she found her groove.

A prophecy sends a young Prince and his loyal elephant, out on a quest to find a princess the prince can marry.Also, the villainous, exiled gnome king is up to something and two of his minions, a wooden doll come to life and a very large rabbit, want to escape him.These two threads take awhile to overlap, but once they do, it becomes a fun romp.You're going to figure out the secret of the missing princess way before our hero, but otherwise, a fun read.

OK, I just spent half an hour writing a review to this book, and the stupid site erased it. I'm not doing it again. Suffice to say, an entertaining story, some good new characters, a few issues with charater and plot development, writing style not quite so charming but easier to read aloud. Whatever.

This was a bit of an improvement on the last Oz book, and it feels like Thompson is getting to grips with Baum writing style (and not making as many terrible puns). This is quite similar to The Marvellous Land Of Oz with its plot about secret identities and brings back some favourite characters while introducing some new ones too.

A decent Oz book. Recommended if you want to read everything published on the country of Oz. It is also an enjoyable read on its own, although it does assume that you are familiar with the ever growing cast of characters that have been added after the first book, so you'll want to have some of the other Oz books read first.

Much better than the first Oz book Thompson wrote. She added more intriguing and fun characters to this wonderful world. I'm glad I get the chance to rediscover one of my favorite series again for the first time (since I never read Thompson's books!)

One of Thompson's better Oz books, I've so far read about half of her books. This is her second book following the pretty terrible Royal book of Oz, she's developing her own style and characters here and moving away from trying unsuccessfully to copy Baum.

Enjoyed reading this for my grandchildren. Stays true to the Oz world. The main characters are new but we do meet important characters from the Oz books. Adults will find this enjoyable but predictable. Kids will enjoy it.

Great book, just like the other Oz books.