The Giant Horse of Oz

The Giant Horse of Oz

infobox Book
name = The Giant Horse of Oz


author = Ruth Plumly Thompson
illustrator = John R. Neill
country = United States
language = English
series = The Oz books
genre = Children's novel
publisher = Reilly & Lee
release_date = 1928
media_type = Print (Hardcover)
preceded_by = The Gnome King of Oz
followed_by = Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz

"The Giant Horse of Oz" (1928) is the twenty-second of the Oz books created by L. Frank Baum and the eighth written by Ruth Plumly Thompson. It was Illustrated by John R. Neill.

Plot

The tiny kingdom of the Ozure Isles is the Kashmir or Shangri-La of Oz; perched on five islands in Lake Orizon, surrounded by high mountains in a remote region of Munchkin Land, it has little contact with the outside world—of Oz, that is. The beaches are not sand but gemstones; the people travel between their islands not by boat, but by seahorse. Or they used to, before the evil witch Mombi turned her malice in the Ozure direction. After kidnapping Queen Orin, Mombi left a fire-breathing lake monster named Quiberon in Lake Orizon to keep the natives prisoner. Even after Mombi is vanquished, the isolated Ozurites remain oppressed.

Conditions grow worse when the quixotic Quiberon demands a mortal maiden. Since Oz is a fairyland, the only mortal maidens are three American girls living in the Emerald City: Dorothy Gale, Betsy Bobbin, and Tiny Trot. Two Ozurites respond to the crisis in two separate ways. The heroic Prince Philador escapes from the islands to seek the aid of Tattypoo, the Good Witch of the North. The unheroic Akbad, the Ozure Isles soothsayer, pursues an appeasement policy in a novel way: with a pair of magic wings he flies to the Emerald City and kidnaps Trot. (She, the heroine of L. Frank Baum's "Sky Island" and "The Sea Fairies", reached Oz in Baum's "The Scarecrow of Oz.") Being a neophyte kidnapper, Akbad overdoes it, and accidentally kidnaps the Scarecrow and an animated statue called Benny (short for "public benefactor") along with his primary target.

In his search for Tattypoo, Prince Philador teams up with High Boy, a giant horse with telescoping legs, and Herby the Medicine Man, an eighteenth century doctor with a medicine chest in his own chest due to an incomplete disenchantment. Various adventures ensue, in strange locations like Cave City, and with even stranger beings like the Roundabouties and Shutterfaces. Eventually, matters are sorted out satisfactorily: the Wizard turns Quiberon into a great bronze and silver statue, and the good Witch Tattypoo is revealed to be the missing and amnesiac Queen Orin. She is restored to her family and kingdom. Trot becomes a princess of the Ozure Isles, welcome in their Sapphire City whenever she chooses to visit.

oz books
before=The Gnome King of Oz
after=Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz
title=The Giant Horse of Oz
year=1928


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