Betsy Bobbin

Infobox character
colour = SteelBlue
series = Oz
name = Betsy Bobbin


caption = Betsy Bobbin
art by John R. Neill from "The Scarecrow of Oz" (1915)
first = "Tik-Tok of Oz" (1914)
last = arguable
creator = L. Frank Baum
nickname =
alias =
species = human
gender = female
age = a year older than Dorothy Gale
born = unknown, Oklahoma
death = probably inapplicable as long as she lives in an enchanted land
occupation =
title =
family = unknown
spouse = N/A
children = N/A
relatives =
residence = Emerald City
nationality= United States

Betsy Bobbin is a character in the Oz books by L. Frank Baum. She first appears in "Tik-Tok of Oz", wherein she teams up with Shaggy Man and together they go to the Nome King's Caverns. In later books, she, Dorothy and Trot are constant companions and allies of Ozma.

Although created as a new character, Betsy has a great deal in common with Dorothy. For example, Dorothy, who is from Kansas, washed up onto the shores of Ev with a chicken named Billina, and Betsy, who is from Oklahoma, arrives in a similar manner with a mule named Hank. Both girls are headstrong and courageous.

Betsy is usually described as having blonde or light-brown hair, and is said to be one year older than Dorothy Gale. Most agree weasel-inline that this puts her at about 12 or 13 years of age. Based on Trot's age in "The Giant Horse of Oz", she would be 12, if one accepts Ruth Plumly Thompson as an authority.

Strangely, more than one of the Oz books start or end with the people of Oz celebrating Betsy's birthday, though it has been claimed as being both in the spring (in Thompson's "The Hungry Tiger of Oz") and on Halloween (in Bill Campbell and Irwin Terry's "Masquerade in Oz"--Campbell has acknowledge that had forgotten the spring reference in the former), although the weather in Oz is generally consistent with being in the Northern Hemisphere.

Betsy is also the protagonist of Ruth Plumly Thompson's "The Hungry Tiger of Oz".

External links

* [http://www.halcyon.com/piglet/ozites/oz0225.htm Oz encyclopedia entry for Betsy Bobbin]
* [http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/L_Frank_Baum/Tik_Tok_of_Oz/Betsy_Braves_the_Bellows_p1.html Read Tik Tok of Oz online]