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A review by izzatiidrus
The Royal Book of Oz by Ruth Plumly Thompson
2.0
I only read this because it came as a set with the rest of Baum's books in the series. I never meant to continue reading any books in the series even if I were to like Thompson's writing, which I highly doubted before I even started reading it, to be honest.
At first the story began nicely and I thought maybe Thompson could do the series justice after all. Until it introduced some characters with Chinese background. See, Baum never really brought any specific race to the story. He created characters that are pretty much free from the ethnicity we recognize in our world. And I felt as if Thompson was somehow belittling Chinese in her writing (that unlike the friendly people of Oz, the Middlings abide strictly by hierarchy; and the future successors only wish for inheritance and to ascend to the throne and would use cunning ways to be crowned king). And the fact that she made these people wear pigtails and kimono just showed Asian generalization at its best, of course, when people can't be bothered to differentiate between Chinese and Japanese. All of these scream racism to me, it made me feel uncomfortable reading.
Unlike Baum, Thompson's story lacked the sass and poking fun at human's silliness. It also didn't have any sort of message which Baum so smartly weaved into his stories every time. Thompson's merely nonsensical style reminds me more of Lewis Caroll's Alice in Wonderland than the Baum's Oz series.
I also felt like there were one too many poems within the book. While I love poetry, especially rhymed ones, I couldn't help but feel like too many of them were something like a cop out way to fill the pages with rhymes and spaces instead of a more fleshed out story.
At first the story began nicely and I thought maybe Thompson could do the series justice after all. Until it introduced some characters with Chinese background. See, Baum never really brought any specific race to the story. He created characters that are pretty much free from the ethnicity we recognize in our world. And I felt as if Thompson was somehow belittling Chinese in her writing (that unlike the friendly people of Oz, the Middlings abide strictly by hierarchy; and the future successors only wish for inheritance and to ascend to the throne and would use cunning ways to be crowned king). And the fact that she made these people wear pigtails and kimono just showed Asian generalization at its best, of course, when people can't be bothered to differentiate between Chinese and Japanese. All of these scream racism to me, it made me feel uncomfortable reading.
Unlike Baum, Thompson's story lacked the sass and poking fun at human's silliness. It also didn't have any sort of message which Baum so smartly weaved into his stories every time. Thompson's merely nonsensical style reminds me more of Lewis Caroll's Alice in Wonderland than the Baum's Oz series.
I also felt like there were one too many poems within the book. While I love poetry, especially rhymed ones, I couldn't help but feel like too many of them were something like a cop out way to fill the pages with rhymes and spaces instead of a more fleshed out story.