(Paperback)

Interestingly, Baum, who adapted European fairy mythology and Theosophical beliefs for the Oz books, also had a backdoor method for entering Oz: in 1919's The Road To Oz, Dorothy, again back in Kansas, finds herself more or less 'pixie led' - inexplicably lost in a familiar place - while on the road to American city Butterfield. Since the fairies were partially identified with the dead in Ireland and Scotland, Dorothy's "straying off the path" is open to a number of interpretations.

To small Christian children then as now, Oz must certainly seem like Heaven, or least a happy, comforting purgatory where no one goes hungry, wants for anything, or ages; every one of its inhabitants lives forever in almost complete peace and serenity. In fact, Oz, with its minor greedy, power-lusting villains and occasional upsets, is perhaps more akin to Heaven before Lucifer's rebellion and expulsion. For Dorothy, who is eventually and permanently joined in Oz by beloved animal companion Toto and parental guardians Aunt Em and Uncle Henry, Oz is paradise, a place with just enough novelty and tension to make infinity enjoyable forever.

If Oz enjoys a god figure, then it is child fairy Ozma; but Ozma, relatively mature sorceress Glinda the Good, and especially over-conceived sky voluptuary Polychrome are more akin to the traditional image of Christian angels. Outside its own borders, Oz has its hell and its devils too. Every Oz reader knows about the underground cavern kingdom of the Gnomes, which lies across the burning, fiery-hot desert in Ev (Evil?), and of Ev's demonic, shape-shifting Phanfasms, most malevolent of all Oz and Ev tribes.

Handy Mandy in Oz is one of the lesser Thompson titles, enjoyable enough in itself but not quite developed enough in its narrative to join the classics in the Oz chronicle. Thompson introduces Mandy, who has seven arms, but, in clever conjunction with illustrator John R. Neill, doesn't make this apparent until the book's third chapter. Suddenly discovering herself in a Gillikin kingdom lorded over by a domineering false king, Mandy meets "royal ox" Nox, and the two escape in search of deposed boy king Kerry, who has been missing for two Oz years. Handy Mandy, who has a decided Protestant work ethic, is a solidly built, self-reliant, no-nonsense lass who, all things considered, makes an excellent role model. Thompson wisely fails to stress whether or not Mandy is beautiful, and allows Mandy a certain toughness of mind: Mandy has to be the only heroic Oz character before Jenny Jump who is suspicious of Ozma's buttery sweetness and perceives her Magic Picture to have negative, Big Brother-like potential. In one early chapter, Mandy, resolutely prepared to face any opposition, takes up not only a sword but a rifle, surely an Ozian first. Curmudgeon Nox the Ox, like Kabumpo the Elegant Elephant before him, is a similarly well-conceived character; Nox realistically loses his temper on occasion and doesn't suffer fools gladly.

The villain of the book is fey sorcerer Wutz the Silver King, who Neill hilariously portrays as a slightly decadent, late-period John Barrymore. Wutz frees Ruggedo the Gnome King from his latest in a series of many enchantments and the two unscrupulous beings, ostensibly in partnership, plot against Ozma and one another. The story of Handy Mandy In Oz is, in pattern, so much like other previous Oz titles that the reader will easily guess not only who has captured the missing Kerry but what the outcome of the nefarious plot will be. The resurrection of Ruggedo alone will cause readers to pause to suppress a yawn.

As a seven-armed wonder - three on one side, four awkwardly on the other - Handy Mandy may remind readers of an archetypal Indian goddess reinterpreted as a clog-wearing Dutch milkmaid. John R. Neill's illustrations are terrific throughout, including one depicting the futuristic, Art Deco interior of the Silver King's throne room, and another of frenzied Scraps the Patchwork Girl attacking the unprepared Mandy. Unlike some of the other Thompson titles, there are few elements of the book which reflect the influence of the Alice books. However, one of Neill's pictures of Mandy and Nox treading water, heads barely above the surface, appears to be a homage to Tenniel's illustrations for Alice chapter The Pool Of Tears, especially since, as in Carroll, the 'pool' is generated from the body of one of the swimmers.