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Title: Merry Go Round in Oz by Eloise Jarvis McGraw, Lauren McGraw, Dick Martin, L. Frank Baum ISBN: 0-929605-06-3 Publisher: Books of Wonder Pub. Date: 01 December, 1989 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.45

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Average Customer Rating: 4.33 (3 reviews)

Rating: 3
Summary: Oz In The Atomic Age
Comment: 1963's Merry Go Round In Oz, written by the mother-daughter team of Eloise and Lauren McGraw, was, as Katherine M. Rogers notes in L. Frank Baum: Creator of Oz (2002), the last Oz title commissioned by a major publisher. Neither good nor bad, Merry Go Round In Oz was also the first major Oz novel to almost completely remove itself in tone from the spirit of the classic Oz titles. The book is not only not a romance, but, despite the prominent appearance of the Easter Bunny, hardly an Oz novel at all. Its very light, crisp manner owes more to Mary Poppins author P. L. Travers than it does to Baum or any of his successors.

The book's excellent first chapter finds young foster child Robin Brown accompanying his multiple stepbrothers to an evening carnival in Cherryburg, Oregon. Continuously overlooked by his well-meaning but rambunctious foster family, Robin enters the carnival with a single coin; the others have all run off with pockets full of money towards their favorite amusements. The McGraws perfectly capture the essence of Robin's physical and emotional isolation from not only his new family, but from the balance of humanity as well. Robin, who is aware of his mistreatment, is thus an archetypal fairytale child protagonist, not unlike fellow orphan Cinderella, bearing up silently and bravely making the best of his predicament. When Robin, who has modestly hoped for but a single ride on the merry-go-round, meets a strange, ticket-bearing older man dressed in tatters, his fairytale outsider status is confirmed: Robin sees things and meets people that no one else does. The McGraws cleverly portray the fair grounds in somewhat Bradbury-esque terms: the night carnival is both an all-American, fifties-style entertainment venue of roller coasters, popcorn, and hot dogs as well as Pinocchio's midway of shadowy seduction. Transgressing the rules of order, Robin uses the illicit ticket provided by the stranger to gain access to the merry-go-round, seats himself atop a beautiful red mare, and momentarily finds himself hurled through the air towards Oz.

Unfortunately, Robin, who gleefully discovers that his mount has sprung to life, lands in the comparatively dull Quadling Kingdom of the Fox Hunters, a place he quickly finds tedious in the extreme. As readers will be able to attest, Robin is absolutely right: his prolonged captivity among the endlessly talkative, single-minded, faux-British inhabitants represents one of the most overwritten, slowly moving, and irritating misadventures in the entire Oz chronicle. The authors clearly intend the obsessive, fully adult foxhunters to be amusing, but the writing, while technically crisp, drones on at exactly the same bantering pitch for dozens and dozens of pages. Robin and the reader thus face the same exhausting dilemma.

Meanwhile, in the ostensibly blue Munchkin kingdom of Halidom, a curse of sorts lays over the land: two of the kingdom's magic rings of power have been stolen, and the third, which gives great physical strength to Halidom's people, now mysteriously vanishes. In Sleeping Beauty fashion, the kingdom falls into lassitude and drowse: only Fess, a young man born in a neighboring land, and an immortal fairy unicorn are immune. Brainless Prince Gules, still half asleep, decides the power rings must be returned to the kingdom, and a quest is born. In the Emerald City, Ozma and Dorothy decide to hold an Easter party, which necessitates Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion journeying to the realm of the Easter Bunny ("it's down a rabbit hole," says Dorothy) to gather magical eggs. In traditional Oz fashion, the three groups eventually cross paths and unite to solve their various troubles.

Though the later chapters are more imaginative, the book's largest drawback is that too much of it seems to take place in a dry, mundane world that barely resembles Oz. In fact, the foxhunting chapters seem like sections of another book awkwardly grafted onto a stale facsimile of a traditional Oz title. While the best of the earlier books have a dreamlike, otherworldly quality, Oz here, in keeping with the trend in children's literature at the time of its publication and since, has few numinous characteristics. In place of romantic, playful, or absurd names like Woot the Wanderer, Ojo the Unlucky, Polychrome the Rainbow's Daughter, Kabumpo, Alexample, and Jenny Jump, the reader is confronted with next-door neighbor monikers like Barry, Richard, and Fred. The Quadling land is no longer profusely red in color as in the Neill books, where the sky, water, and even in the shade and shadows were scarlet-hued. Oddly, though red is mentioned, the dominant Quadling color inexplicably appears to be pink.

Though ninety-nine percent of previous Oz history goes unmentioned, the McGraws curiously recap the earthly existence / afterlife facet of the Oz chronicle, relaying to readers that Dorothy, among others, has cheated death and reached Oz via otherwise fatal catastrophes (cyclone, earthquake, shipwreck). Is the tattered stranger Robin meets at the carnival the angel of death, a kind of fairy godfather, or the ghost of his human father? Does the "free ticket" symbolize Robin's passage into death and the heavenly paradise of Oz? Is the somewhat odd inclusion of the Easter Bunny a further metaphor for Robin's death and rebirth? The authors also let drop another historical Oz bombshell when a Quadling ferryman explains to the gender-neutral named Robin that little girl fairy ruler Ozma was at one time little Munchkin boy Tip. Though Robin "bursts out, delighted," at the news, the McGraws quickly add that this makes Ozma seem "more approachable" in dungaree-wearing Robin's eyes.

Merry Go Round In Oz was very likely an attempt by its authors and publisher to reinvent the Oz series for Camelot and Leave It To Beaver - era America. Robin and Fess are likable, sturdy boy heroes, and the characterizations of the Oz royal family are fairly good. If the foxhunters had been removed and the first third of the story reimagined, the book might have left a lasting impac

Rating: 5
Summary: As great now as it was when I was 10.
Comment: This was my favorite Oz book as a child. I checked it out numerous times from the base library and I was the only one to check it out. I bought it as soon as I heard it was in print. It was just as good reading it as an adult.

Rating: 5
Summary: How 3 lost circles bring together 3 very different groups.
Comment: Robin Brown, from Cherryville, Oregon, takes a ride on the merry-go-round via a ticket from a weird old man. He jumps on a scarlet horse with a white tail and mane, then grabs a ring that will give him a "free ride". With that, he is flying throuhg the air for one whole night. When he wakes up, he finds the horse, Merry-Go-Round, is alive. They are both captured by fox hunters and are put to work. Meanwhile, the the country of Halidom, the last of three magic rings is stolen, the middle one, that makes the people strong and hard working. He goes on a quest with his page, his horse Fred, a fliter-mouse, and a unicorn to find all three, the largest to make the people smart, and the smallest to make the people good a calligraphy, weaving, and other fine arts. In the Emerald City, Dorothy wants a huge Easter party, and she and the Cowardly Lion go to the Easter Bunny's workshop, right in Oz. How will these traveling groups meet? Where are those rings? How will Robin and Merry escape? REad the book, and find out emore.