The Wonder City of Oz

"The Wonder City of Oz" (1940) is the thirty-fourth of the Oz books created by L. Frank Baum and the first written and illustrated solely by John R. Neill.

Jenny Jump captures a leprechaun named Siko Pompus (apparently a pun on "psychopomp") and forces him to make her into a fairy, but he only does half the job before escaping. Jenny then jumps to Oz using her half-fairy gifts. She soon sets up a fashionable Style Shop with a magic turnstyle which will give anyone high style and challenges Ozma to an "Ozlection" to become ruler of the Land of Oz.

At the book's climax, the Ozlection is exactly a tie, with a precisely equal number of votes cast for Ozma and for Jenny Jump. Only one citizen of Oz has not yet voted: the leprechaun Siko Pompus. He assures Jenny that he is her friend, and then he steps forward to vote for ... which?

The Ozlection storyline, with its shoes as votes scenario, was not written by Neill but by an anonymous editor who found portions of Neill's version of the book inadequate. None of the incidents in this plot thread is illustrated by Neill.

oz books
before=Ozoplaning with the Wizard of Oz
after=The Scalawagons of Oz
title=The Wonder City of Oz
year=1940