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Book Home  Books Information Glinda of Oz
Glinda of Oz
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Glinda of Oz is the fourteenth Land of Oz book
written by children's author L. Frank Baum. Baum started the
book, but it was completed and published in 1920 based on notes
he had left after his death in May 1919.
Critics generally agree that Glinda is the darkest
of Baum's Oz books, perhaps because the book was written by
Baum in failing health, and the story took on some of Baum's
outlook on life as he reached the end of his own.
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On a visit to the castle of the sorceress Glinda in
the Quadling Country, Ozma and Dorothy discover a reference in Glinda's
Great Book of Records to a war about to begin between the Skeezers
and the Flatheads, two peoples of the Gillikin Country of Oz. Glinda's
magic can find out very little about them. Ozma decides that it is
her duty as ruler of Oz to stop the fighting if she can, and she and
Dorothy choose to travel there after being supplied from the Emerald
City. Glinda anticipates trouble, so she gives Dorothy a ring to signal
her if she and Ozma are in great danger.
On their journey Ozma and Dorothy escape giant purple
spiders and arrive at Flathead Mountain where the inhabitants are,
in keeping with the name, flat-headed. The Su-Dic (Supreme Dictator)
explains that each Flathead carries their brains in their pockets,
and they are going to war with the Skeezers because their queen, Coo-ee-oh,
used magic to transformed the Su-Dic's wife, a witch named Rora, into
a golden pig and refuse to allow the Flatheads to catch fish in their
lake. The Su-Dic's belligerence prompts Ozma to turn herself and Dorothy
invisible so they can escape north to the glass island of the Skeezers.
A steel bridge magically extends from the island on the lake and Dorothy
and Ozma are ushered into the presence of Queen Coo-ee-oh, who seems
to welcome war with the Flatheads as much as the Su-Dic does with
the Skeezers. Since the steel bridge has been retracted, Dorothy and
Ozma cannot leave the island and Coo-ee-oh has them kept in a minimum
security prison until the war is over.
Dorothy and Ozma learn from the Queen's chambermaid
Aurex that the trouble really began when Coo-ee-oh, who had been taught
the rudiments of magic by three Adepts at Magic who ruled the once-friendly
Flatheads, used what she'd learned to transform the Adepts from women
into fish in the Skeezer lake. The Su-Dic and Rora saw their chance
to take over the Flatheads themselves, stealing brains from their
fellows. Coo-ee-oh also used magic to institute a reign of terror
over the Skeezers; she can hear everything spoken on the island and
can swiftly punish any sedition.
The next morning, Coo-ee-oh magically lowers the Skeezers'
island beneath the surface of the lake and sends soldiers in submersible
boats to attack the invading Flatheads. But the Su-Dic catches Coo-ee-oh
by surprise and transforms her into a swan with no memory of her past
life. In his joy, the Su-Dic knocks over the poison he intended to
use on the Skeezer lake (which would have killed the Adepts, the remaining
threat to his rule). But he leaves victorious because he knows that
the Skeezer soldiers are stranded on the lake's surface and the Skeezer
people in the city can't raise it to the surface without Coo-ee-oh's
magic. Dorothy twists the ring Glinda gave her and the sorceress calls
a Council of State to go with her from the Emerald City to the Skeezer
island.
One of the queen's soldiers, a boy named Ervic, is whispered
to by the Adepts at Magic in their fish forms and encouraged to take
them to Reera the Red, an isolationist witch who specializes in transformations.
Through cunning and reverse psychology, the Adepts succeed in having
Reera restore them to their rightful forms. Meanwhile, Glinda and
the party from the Emerald City try to dredge the lake and raise the
island by magic, but their attempts fail until some of the party is
actually lowered within the city to examine it and its intricate machinery.
The machinery can only be moved by magic, and Glinda discovers that
Coo-ee-oh used a magic powder to perform some of her greatest feats.
Dorothy deduces that the former Skeezer queen would have needed three
magic words regarding the island: one to release the submersible boats,
one to extend the bridge, and one to raise and lower the island. And
her name, Coo-ee-oh, has three words. So through trial and error,
the party raises the island by burning some of the magic powder and
uttering "Oh".
The Skeezers along with the Oz people celebrate their
victory (in the first documented celebration that doesn't take place
in the Emerald City) and name Aurex queen, who appoints Ervic Prime
Minister on the recommendation of the restored Adepts. The party from
the Emerald City and the Adepts return the Flathead mountain, where
they are warmly welcomed by all except the Su-Dic -- but once his
extra cans of brains are removed, he's harmless. Glinda performs an
enchantment on each Flathead that allows the tops of their heads to
grow around their brains, thus giving them round heads. They rename
themselves Mountaineers and accept the rule of the Adepts once again.
Both they and the Skeezers pledge themselves henceforth to be loyal
subjects of Ozma.
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