| $@%&! level: None “Bedroom” level: None Violence level: Low (mostly with knitting needles) Back Cover: “In which young Tip runs away from his guardian, the witch Mombi, taking with him Jack Pumpkinhead and the wooden Saw-Horse, and flees to the Emerald City where he learns the incredible secret of his past.” |
I think there are probably quite a few feminists out there who must hate this story. General Jinjur and her girl army—and their eventual fate—are the kind of things that inspire a sort of knee-jerk reaction that way. Telling a girl to go home to her mother and bake bread does seem pretty insulting and sexist. But, that leaves out a lot of important facts, such as the fact that most of the powerful and/or heroic figures in Oz are women. You've got Glinda the Good, and Dorothy, and even the Wicked Witches of East and West (who weren't heroic, but were very powerful). And in this book you add in Mombi and Ozma, the rightful ruler of Oz. No one would ever tell any of these women to go home to their mothers and bake bread. So I suspect that if the story is saying anything about women's rights and feminism, it's saying that people should stop acting so childish about it.
Anyway, once you get over that, I have to say that the structure is a little bit weak. I didn't notice it as a child, of course, but a number of things happen very conveniently, and most of the story is spent either going someplace for no particular reason or running away from things. It's only at the end that anyone gets a proper goal, with a plan to accomplish it. On the other hand, all that running around does present a wonderful opportunity for absurd things to happen (not the least of which is the horrible punning of Mr. H.M. Woggle-Bug, T.E.). I do enjoy a bit of inventive absurdity. And I've always loved the surprise twist at the end.