Nome in Your Home (original) (raw)

‘Tis the season, so I thought I would reread and review some Christmas-related Oz books.

The Enchanted Gnome of Oz, by Greg Hunter – This one is set during Christmas Eve and Day, and it is relevant to the plot, but doesn’t include that many holiday trappings. Since the old Nome King appeared in four of L. Frank Baum’s books (five, if you count Little Wizard Stories as a book) and four of Ruth Plumly Thompson’s, it’s not surprising that he shows up in a lot of fan-written works as well. This one picks up from his becoming a cactus in Handy Mandy, with two goblin children bringing him to their king as a Christmas present, and a magician restoring him in order to practice his skills. He’d been making a noise that was bothering the Goblin King (not David Bowie, but someone named HobGoblin), but apparently not anyone in the palace where he was being kept. The Nome ends up falling into a frozen city, where he meets a blue witch named Belinda and a flying dragon called Wunch. They join him in his plot to create snow from the Water of Oblivion to make everyone in the Emerald City forget everything, but it only serves to make those who work magic forget how to do it. That’s enough to allow Ruggedo to steal the Magic Belt and torment everyone in the palace, sometimes in meaner ways than he had in the past. Meanwhile, the witch and the dragon turn against the Nome and discover their own origins, filling in some details about Glinda’s family and the former rulership of the Gillikin Country. It definitely feels like an Oz story, and shows a good knowledge of the established history of the fairyland. It does seem like a bit of a cheap plot device for the Wizard of Oz to have a machine that can show anything in order to solve one problem, after which Jack Pumpkinhead accidentally breaks it. Ozma’s mother Ozette, introduced in Ray Powell’s Mister Flint, is a character here, although she’s not developed all that much beyond being kindly and particularly fond of Button-Bright. I know Joe Bongiorno tried to reconcile this book with Dennis Anfuso’s later Astonishing Tale of the Gump, which also brings back Ozma’s mother, by saying that Ozette is Ozma’s grandmother instead. She is called Pastoria‘s wife in this book, but none of their interactions are especially romantic or anything, so I suppose that works. We also learn here that Nomes love cinnamon. And there’s some acknowledgement of how John R. Neill started drawing Ruggedo much skinnier in the Thompson books.

Christmas in Oz, by Robin Hess – Not a lot happens in this book, although I believe I’ve heard that Hess originally wrote it as part of a longer story with more conflict. It concerns Santa Claus establishing a new workshop in Oz, in a valley on the border of the Quadling Country with the Emerald City territory. The title has a double meaning, as it’s set around Christmas, but it also features a girl named Merrie Christmas Pederson, as she was born on that day. She’s embarrassed about it, but Santa helps her to feel better about her name. Chris’s great-uncle is Button-Bright’s younger brother, and she finds the Magic Umbrella at his house in Philadelphia and uses it to travel to Oz. I’m not sure how the Umbrella would have gotten back to Pennsylvania, but maybe it has something to do with the time travel and loop in Paul Dana’s Magic Umbrella. There is an antagonist of sorts, but she’s never much of a threat, and a talk with Santa is able to help her recover from the events in her past that led to her wanting to be nasty. If the gift-giving thing doesn’t work out, maybe he has a future as a therapist. There is some discussion of the differences between elves, Knooks, and Ryls, and we learn that the Emerald City’s water supply is overseen by a man made of springs. Santa’s Ozian workshop reappears in Hess’s Toto and the Cats, where we learn that his household is kept by a Jule Nisse.

This entry was posted in Book Reviews, Characters, Christmas, Dennis Anfuso, Families, Holidays, John R. Neill, L. Frank Baum, Magic, Magic Items, Names, Oz, Oz Authors, Ray Powell, Ruth Plumly Thompson and tagged belinda, button-bright, christmas in oz, dragons, elves, emerald city, goblins, greg hunter, handy mandy in oz, jack pumpkinhead, joe bongiorno, julenisse, knooks, magic belt, magic umbrella, mister flint in oz, nisser, nome king, nomes, ozette, ozma, pastoria, paul dana, robin hess, ryls, santa claus, the astonishing tale of the gump of oz, the enchanted gnome of oz, the little wizard stories of oz, the magic umbrella of oz, toto and the cats of oz, witches, wizard of oz. Bookmark the permalink.