Todd Klein's Blog, page 23

Rereading: THE ROAD TO OZ by L. Frank Baum

The sixth Oz book by Baum tries a different visual approach from the previous ones. While the cover and dust jacket (missing from my copy) are in color, all the interior illustrations by John R. Neill are black and white line art. Color is added through signatures of paper in different shades, the example above is described as salmon, while you can see a bit of the previous signature at left, light blue. When I read the book as a child, I thought the idea was to represent the different places in the story with different colors, but the text fails miserably at that, as one might predict, and some of the paper colors have faded a lot so they can’t really be identified at this point. The salmon one above bucks that trend.

The story also has some differences from past Oz books. It begins with Dorothy and Toto meeting a tramp or homeless wanderer known as the Shaggy Man outside Dorothy’s Kansas home, artfully depicted by Neill as wearing clothes full of curly tatters. He is an ordinary but kindly character, and he reveals that he owns a magic charm, the Love Magnet, that causes everyone to love him. The Shaggy Man is lost, and Dorothy offers to go with him a short way to direct him, which soon brings them to a small boy sitting alone in the road, Button Bright. Before long the three people and Toto have come to an impossible crossroads with many different choices. Dorothy suspects they have somehow gotten into a fairyland like the ones she’s been to before, and later a meeting with Polychrome, the rainbow’s daughter, confirms that. Polychrome is also lost, having fallen from her rainbow, and these characters travel on together through a variety of strange villages inhabited by talking foxes and donkeys, and meetings with a man who breathes out music and an attack by dangerous Scoodlers. Eventually they reach the edge of the Deadly Desert which surrounds Oz, where Dorothy has many friends, but how can they cross without being turned to dust by the destroying sand?

Another interesting thing that Baum does is tie the Oz books together with all the other fantasy books and characters he’s written about to this point, through the idea of a massive birthday celebration for Ozma, ruler of Oz. Introduced for the party are John Dough and the Cherub, Queen Zixi of Ix, the Queen of Merryland, Santa Claus, and more from his other books. I don’t know if Baum was the first author to thus create his own crossover universe, but it’s certainly an early one.

While the plot rambles, and there is little serious danger or urgency, I enjoyed rereading this one. I doubt later printings follow the tinted paper idea, but it would hardly be missed. Recommended.

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Sand Sculpture with Tim 8-24-24

My friend Tim and I have a long history of annual sand sculptures at the beach near me in southern NJ. The one we did this weekend is the latest, earlier ones can be found in the Sand Sculptures category on this page. Here are some of Tim’s many tools, and a few of mine in the orange bucket. The black form is made with a roll of roofing paper clamped at the pole, then filled with alternating sand and water until it’s packed tight. The second layer is in the white bucket with the bottom removed so it’s easier to take off when filled the same way. Above that we added a third layer of pancaked sand to bring the total height to about three feet.

Here’s Tim at work with more of his tools. We each focused on one side of the sculpture, the tower and rectangular rock shapes on the opposite side were part of my contribution.

The rest of the pictures are of the final sculpture at the end of our day. Looking toward the ocean, this is Tim’s part on the left and mine on the right.

Looking away from the ocean, this is mostly by Tim, including a nice stairway and brick wall. The entire sculpture is a mix of tradional castle elements and abstract shapes in the style of Calvin Siebert.

The north side is mostly larger Siebert-style shapes by Tim.

Another angle showing mostly Tim’s carvings.

And a final angle showing mostly my carvings. The crenellations on the top tower and wall are done separately and added. Many of our techniques are from the book “Sandcastles Made Simple” by Lucinda “sandy feet” Wierenga, Stewart Tabori & Chang, 2005. This took most of the day, but was fun to do. I couldn’t do it often, but about once a year works for me.

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Rereading: GOING GANGSTER by M. E. Atkinson

Cover and illustrations by Harold Jones

The fifth book in the Lockett series of British holiday adventure stories by Atkinson features only Jane and Bill of the trio, set on a journey by their frenemy Fenella. Oliver is back at school, but Jane and Bill are spending some time on the coast at a guest house while Bill recovers from an illness. There they run into Fenella, whose school is nearby, and she rescues Bill from a swift ocean current. Grateful Jane says she’d do anything for Fenella as thanks, and that’s where the adventure begins. Fenella’s school has a young student, Patsy, who is miserable and unsuited, and Fenella decides the Locketts must help her escape and get back to her family, who are gypsies. She has help from another student, Terry, who soon joins Jane and Bill as they try to get passive Patsy away and across a lonely heath to where they can get a train to her family. All kinds of events and obstacles stand in their way, including a treacherous bog, a river, and the danger of being recognized. Then something happens that changes the plan, but how can the children get Patsy to safety?

These books are great fun, full of exciting events and great characters, not to mention British country life and customs. Recommended.

Amazon seems to have shut down its Bounty Links page, where I was getting links for these reviews, but you can search for the book and author on Google.

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Rereading: AT THAT TIME by Robert Lawson

The author and illustrator of favorites like “Ben and Me” and “Rabbit Hill” was born in 1892 in the late Victorian era, and raised in Montclair, NJ. This book is stories about his early life, from childhood fears to sports obsessions to early romance. The world it depicts seems centuries away, though in my own childhood of the 1950s, a few of Lawson’s passions were present, like kite flying. Some of the language used to describe ethnic minorities in this 1947 book is now politically incorrect, but if you can overlook that, you’ll find much to enjoy here. Lawson’s critical eye and humor are applied as much to his own young self as to those around him, and while his childhood seems idyllic in some ways, in others it shared experiences and troubles common to all children. Recommended if you can find it. Needless to say, the illustrations are excellent.

At That Time by Robert Lawson

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Incoming: WE3 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition

Images © DC Comics

A new edition of WE3, which I enjoyed reading and lettering. When I was a child, I was captivated by the 1963 book “The Incredible Journey” by Sheila Burnford about three animals who make a cross-country trek to return to their home (later a Disney film). This is kind of similar except that the animals are tech-enhanced intelligent war weapons. Wonderful art by Frank Quitely, beautifully written by Grant Morrison. Two cover versions, apparently. Original retail price $24.99, release date Sept 24.

Amazon has stopped allowing me to link to items for sale for a tiny financial payment if someone buys it, but I should point out that everything I review on this blog goes up for auction on my eBay auction page, and in cases like this, there will be multiple copies offered over time. Here’s a link to my page:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fss=1&_saslop=1&_sasl=tklein28&LH_SpecificSeller=1

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Rereading: FREDDY AND THE FLYING SAUCER PLANS by Walter R. Brooks

The penultimate book in the Freddy series seems to be about the Martians again, but it’s not. Instead Uncle Ben Bean has designed his own flying saucer based on the Martian one, and his plans for it become a highly desirable goal for spies from many countries, who all converge on the Bean farm. Freddy has an idea to get rid of them involving a fake set of plans, but that goes awry when Uncle Ben realizes he’s given Freddy the real plans instead of the fake ones. Freddy puts all his animal and insect friends to work to defeat the spies, including a new friend, Samuel the mole and a colony of large cannibal ants. Even then, things keep going wrong, and Freddy is captured by some of the spies and must try to work out of trouble from the inside.

Great fun and recommended.

Freddy and the Flying Saucer Plans by Walter R Brooks

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Rereading: THE ISLAND STALLION by Walter Farley

While my favorite of the Farley horse books is the first, The Black Stallion, this one was probably my second favorite.

Steve Duncan is following a childhood dream about having a horse of his own, a wild stallion hidden on a remote island, based on a story his uncle Pitch told him when he was ill. Steve visits his uncle on the Caribbean island of Antago, and Steve and Pitch travel by small boat to another smaller island, Azul, where wild horses live on a sandy beach. Most of the island is tall cliffs, impossible to climb, and the horses are small and unimpressive, but while camping in a short canyon, Steve and Pitch see a magnificent stallion atop the cliff. Back in their boat, they find a difficult way into the cliffs and a maze of tunnels, with evidence they were made hundreds of years earlier by Spanish Conquistadors, just as legends have said. Eventually reaching the interior, they find a fertile, grassy valley and a herd of horses showing Arabian bloodlines, left there by the Conquistadors. One, a red-coated stallion, matches the vision Steve had for his horse, but they watch in horror as another stallion fights him and drives him away into the swamp at one end of the valley.

Steve is determined to find the horse, which he calls Flame, and when he does, he’s able to rescue him from quicksand. Thus, gradually, Steve and Flame become friends, and Steve is even able to ride the wild stallion. Meanwhile, Pitch is excited about the Spanish artifacts he’s discovered, but even if they could return with their finds, not an easy task, do they really want to destroy this hidden paradise?

Heavier on fantasy and wish-fulfillment than the previous books, it seems less believable to me now, but I sure ate it up as a teenager, and it will appeal to horse lovers of any age. Recommended.

The Island Stallion by Walter Farley

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Rereading: SMUGGLERS’ GAP by M. E. Atkinson

Illustrated by Harold Jones

The fourth book in the Lockett series of holiday adventures by Atkinson takes us to the Scilly Isles off the coast of Cornwall in southwest England. The Lockett children: Oliver, Jane, and Bill, are vacationing with their Aunt Lavinia on the coast of Cornwall, and are on their own for a few days while their aunt visits some other friends. They receive a frantic letter from Robin Angel, who with his sister Anna have become fast friends of the Locketts. It seems Anna and Robin have been sent on their holiday to the guest house of Mrs. Mead, known as Smugglers’ Gap, on a remote island in the Scillies by their grandmother, but Robin writes that Anna has disappeared. He wants the Locketts to come help find her.

Ever resourceful, Oliver and Jane have just enough money for airfare to the main island, and they make their way by ship to the guest house, but Mrs. Mead will give them no satisfying answers about the fate of Anna, and angrily turns them away. At least Robin is glad to see them, and with his help, Oliver and Jane find a place to camp nearby and begin investigating. Meanwhile, Bill has lucked into free transport by ship to the islands as well, and when he meets his siblings, is able to do things they can’t without arousing the anger of Mrs. Mead. There are more complications, including suspected smuggling, a hidden door, and a mysterious boy lurking out of sight in the house, and the Locketts and Robin have quite a time and some dangerous adventures trying to unlock the mystery and find their friend.

Recommended.

Smugglers’ Gap by M E Atkinson

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Rereading: DOROTHY AND THE WIZARD IN OZ by L. Frank Baum

Cover and illustrations by John R. Neill

The fourth book in Baum’s Oz series sees the return of the Wizard from the first book. Dorothy is in California to visit relatives with her Uncle Henry, but while being driven from the train station by Zeb and his carriage horse Jim, there’s a strong earthquake and the carriage falls through crack into unknown underground lands. Also with them is Dorothy’s pet kitten Eureka. When they come down in the land of Mangaboos, they discover that the Wizard in his hot air balloon has also become stranded there, and Dorothy and her friends are happy to join forces with her Oz friend and his nine tiny piglets, part of his magic act. They know they’ve reached some sort of fairyland because all the animals can talk, and Dorothy hopes they can find their way to the surface or even to Oz. The journey is long and hazardous, each place they come to seems more dangerous than the last until finally they reach a dead end. How will they escape?

Neill’s fine illustrations are mostly in black and white with about a dozen color plates tipped in. For some reason he gives Eureka and the pigs clothes, but otherwise the art is entertaining. I find his Wizard a bit sinister, but better than Denslow’s. I like the story, too. Recommended.

Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz by L Frank Baum

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Rereading: SEA PERIL by Philip Turner

The third book in Turner’s Darnley Mills series about three boys in a coastal area of northern England focuses on a new mystery and a new invention from Peter. He, David, and Arthur plan to take to the water and explore their local river in a small barge called Sea Peril. Peter and his friends have added a boxy cabin, and a paddle wheel on the back powered by a bicycle inside. The mystery involves a missing Roman watch tower, one of a series connecting the harbor to Hadrian’s Wall. Their history teacher gets them interested in excavating the first tower in the chain, which is known, but the the location of the second is unknown. The boys learn it’s probably on the property of Lady Bridgebolton, a disagreeable matriarch who does not want them on her land. Even before they launch their expedition, the boys run afoul of a nasty man in a motor boat, the White Devil. A grudge match between the two vessels leads to all kinds of trouble, and even puts the boys and their friends in danger of drowning.

Great characters, appealing story, recommended.

Sea Peril by Philip Turner

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