A review by lejoy
The Patchwork Girl of Oz by L. Frank Baum

3.0

Although Book 6 was the final story in the Oz series, a few years later Baum needed money so he returned. Only now that Oz has been cut off from the rest of the world to protect it from threats that means that the stories are likely to be even less interesting. In Book 7, our heroes are Ojo, a Munchkin boy who has spent his entire life in the middle of a forest with a monosyllabic uncle, and Scraps, a girl made from a patchwork quilt brought to life by some magic powder (last seen bringing the likes of Jack Pumpkinhead to life). This explains why our heroes know nothing of Oz despite being FROM Oz and they set out on a quest to collect a bunch of objects. Yes it does sound like a computer game. They spend the first half of the book with Shaggy Man, and the second half with Dorothy and the Scarecrow. There is a brief interlude in the middle where Ojo is put on trial by Ozma, but otherwise it is the usual series of random events with new characters and none of it ever comes back or amounts to anything. In fact I am sure that Baum must have been working to a deadline and suddenly had to end this story before he was ready because it really just crashes into the finale after having really spent its time meandering about earlier and he even forgets to wrap up some of the plot. Or rather, he hated phonographs so brings a phonograph to life in this just to have everyone tell it they hate it. Wow, what a great story. Good news though, turns out Dorothy didn't abandon her kitten in Kansas after all.