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35-617: As the full title indicates, Sky Island is a sequel to Baum's The Sea Fairies of 1911. Both books were intended as parts of a projected long-running fantasy series to replace the Oz books. Given the relatively tepid reception of the first book in the series, however, Baum tried to attract young readers by including two characters from his Oz mythos in Sky Island — Button-Bright and Polychrome , originally introduced in The Road to Oz (1909). The book

70-509: A better reception, since they are rather pink in color themselves, albeit of a sadly wan and pale shade. Unfortunately, however, the laws of the Pink Country regarding strangers are ambiguous, and the Pinkies interpret them to require that all strangers must be thrown off the edge of Sky Island. At the edge of the island, just as the Pinkies are about to fulfill the law, Polychrome , the daughter of

105-646: A brave girl defending her brother's interests, in his 1911 novel The Daring Twins .) Her brother Steve supports her decision to fly, in the bold spirit characteristic of the new field of aviation. In Chapter 19 he says, "The most successful aviators in the future...are bound to be women. As a rule they are lighter than men, more supple and active, quick of perception and less liable to lose their heads in emergencies. The operation of an aeroplane is, it seems to me, especially fitted to women." (No traditionalist or male chauvinist would have written that women are "less liable to lose their heads" in an emergency than men.) In

140-408: A competitor. When Steve suffers a broken leg in a crash and cannot fly, Orissa takes his place to prove the validity of his aircraft, demonstrating her own courage and competence in the process. She wins the top prize in an aerial exhibition and gets a boyfriend too, without ever losing "her humble and unassuming manner" and her other maidenly virtues. (Baum was simultaneously writing a similar story, of

175-565: A crash in 1912). The coincidence of the actual Quimby and the fictional Orissa Kane seems to have been nothing more than that – coincidence. The first novel tells the story of Orissa Kane, the sister of a young man who is building his own flying machine. The 17-year-old Orissa provides financial support for her brother Stephen Kane and their blind mother through her office job, while Steve concentrates on his invention. She also supports Steve's work emotionally, urging him forward. The story involves commercial and technical competition, and sabotage by

210-509: A planned metropolis (the Emerald City ), a domed submersible city and miniature submarines (in Glinda of Oz ), and similar features. Baum's Flying Girl books provide a dramatic and blatant display of this technological bent. The first book opens with a Foreword in which Baum thanks Wilbur Wright and Glenn Curtiss "for curtesies extended during the preparation of this manuscript." Curtiss and

245-543: A significant role in The Magic of Oz (1919). Trot appears in The Lost Princess of Oz (1917) and Glinda of Oz (1920) as well. She also plays significant roles in some of Ruth Plumly Thompson 's Oz books, and, after that, in official and non-official sequels by various authors. In 1985, an independent producer commissioned a script based on The Sea Fairies as a follow-up to the movie Return to Oz , but because of

280-492: A strong sympathy with some of the goals of the movement, a sympathy that is reflected in his literary canon. Oz, of course, is a female-dominated society, with Princess Ozma , Glinda , and witches good and bad. Baum wrote a number of books specifically for girls; his ten-novel series Aunt Jane's Nieces portrays young women acting with independence, initiative, and individuality in preference to traditional gender roles. In one case, Baum went too far for his publishers: though he

315-542: A trip to a nearby island; they call it "Sky island," because it looks like it's "halfway in the sky"—but the umbrella takes them to a different place entirely, a literal island in the sky . Sky Island is another split-color country in Baum's fantasy universe, like the Land of Oz . Divided in halves, blue and pink, Sky Island supports two separate races of beings, the Blues (or "Blueskins") and

350-402: Is Cap'n Bill Weedles, a retired sailor with a wooden leg. (Cap'n Bill had been Trot's father's skipper, and Charlie Griffiths had been his mate, before the accident that took the older man's leg.) Trot and Cap'n Bill spend many of their days roaming the beaches near home, or rowing and sailing along the coast. One day, Trot wishes that she could see a mermaid ; her wish is overheard, and granted

385-502: Is a children's fantasy novel written by L. Frank Baum , illustrated by John R. Neill , and published in 1911 by the Reilly & Britton Company, the publisher of Baum's series of Oz books . As an underwater fantasy, Baum's The Sea Fairies can be classed with earlier books with similar themes, like Charles Kingsley 's The Water-Babies (1863), and successors too, like E. Nesbit 's Wet Magic (1913). Baum's novel has no relation to

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420-445: Is a lonely exception to this overall trend: "The sea serpent King Anko...is the closest approximation to a powerful, benevolent father figure in Baum's fantasies." Baum had decided to end the Oz series with The Emerald City of Oz in 1910, after six installments over the first decade of the twentieth century. The Sea Fairies was intended to be the first in a new series of fantasy novels, which Baum and Reilly & Britton continued

455-609: Is mortified to learn that he's the symbol of the Standard Oil Company ). They also encounter a villain called Zog the Magician, a monstrous hybrid of man, animal, and fish, one of the very few absolutely irredeemable, pure-evil characters in Baum's writings. Zog and his sea devils capture them and hold them prisoner. The two protagonists discover that many sailors thought to have been drowned have actually been captured and enslaved by Zog. Trot and Cap'n Bill survive Zog's challenges, and

490-582: Is to slice two of his victims into halves using a huge guillotine-type knife and then join the wrong halves back together, creating very unhappy asymmetrical mixed people. This is called "patching." The Boolooroo threatens to do the same to his new visitors; meanwhile he steals the magic umbrella, keeps the visitors imprisoned, and gives Trot as a slave to his daughters, the Six Snubnosed Princesses (named Cerulia, Turquoise, Sapphire, Azure, Cobalt, and Indigo). The three protagonists manage to escape from

525-445: The 1830 poem of the same name by Alfred, Lord Tennyson . In 1905, however, a musical setting of Tennyson's poem for female chorus and orchestra, composed by Amy Beach , was in performance; the title may have stuck in the back of Baum's mind. Mayre Griffiths, nicknamed Trot , or sometimes Tiny Trot, is a little girl who lives on the coast of southern California. Her father is the captain of a sailing schooner, and her constant companion

560-468: The Blues as well as Queen of the Pinkies. The three travelers then return home, more than a little relieved at their escape from Sky Island. Despite the inclusion of Ozite characters, and even though it is, in the judgment of some critics, "far superior" to its predecessor, Sky Island sold even fewer copies in its first year than The Sea Fairies had; 11,750 copies of Sky Island were sold in 1912. Baum attempted to launch two other juvenile novel series in

595-539: The Blues; penetrating the Great Fog Bank that separates the island's halves and meeting its strange inhabitants, they reach the pink side of the island. The Pink Country is a much friendlier and more relaxed place than the blue side, with cheerful residents. In contrast with the Blues, the Pinkies are ruled by a queen, who is required by law to live very modestly, in poverty, in order to assure that her authority to rule will not cause her to become arrogant. The visitors get

630-508: The Oz books and even Baum's non-Oz works were selling thousands of copies. Once Baum returned to writing Oz books with The Patchwork Girl of Oz in 1913, the Trot series was retired – but the main characters lived on. Trot and Cap'n Bill are the main protagonists in The Scarecrow of Oz (1915) — the plot of which was reworked from the projected third book in their aborted series – and they play

665-527: The Pinkies. (Tormaline is delighted to yield to Trot and become an ordinary citizen free from the requirement of poverty). Trot then uses her new power as Queen to mount an invasion of the Blue Country in order to recover the magic umbrella from the Boolooroo. Cap'n Bill gets captured in battle, and the Boolooroo vows to patch him immediately. The only available "patching partner" is a goat, so Cap'n Bill faces

700-412: The Pinkies. The two halves are separated by a region shrouded in fog, which both people are reluctant to enter. The three travelers land on the blue side of Sky Island, which is a grim country ruled by a sadistic tyrant, the Boolooroo of the Blues. In Sky Island, as in Oz, no one can be killed or suffer pain, but that doesn't mean one is safe: the Boolooroo's method of punishing disobedience in his subjects

735-562: The Wright Brothers appear briefly in the book, along with other early "aeronauts" like Walter Brookins and Arch Hoxsey . Baum's treatment of heavier-than-air powered flight through both books is strongly affirmative. Baum's aviatrix character Orissa Kane had a real-life counterpart. Harriet Quimby arose to notoriety in the same year as the first Flying Girl book appeared. Yet Baum's book appears to have been written before he could have been influenced by Quimby's brief career (she died in

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770-417: The author tone down the book, telling him by letter, "You have made the story too thrilling..." for a (supposedly) female author and her fans. The Flying Girl books were not as popular in their day as the other "Edith Van Dyne" novels; they went out of print with their first editions and were not reprinted for eight decades. Baum's publishers apparently knew their market well, and made a valid judgement, on

805-522: The country's best known technical writers for he had a strong leaning toward technical matters." Many critics who have written about Baum and Oz have noted that Baum's is a technology-friendly fantasy realm, which sets it apart from the more traditional fantasies that preceded it. Baum's Oz books and other works reveal commonalities with science fiction ( The Master Key ) and utopian fiction ; they contain mechanical men (the Tin Woodman and Tik-Tok ),

840-503: The films poor reception, the project was apparently dropped. The Oz Kids video Journey Beneath the Sea was a loose adaptation of The Sea Fairies. The Flying Girl The Flying Girl is a novel written by L. Frank Baum , author of the Oz books . It was first published in 1911. In the book, Baum pursued an innovative blending of genres to create a modern flying adventure melodrama. The book

875-402: The next day. The mermaids explain to Trot, and the distressed Cap'n Bill, that they are benevolent fairies; when they offer Trot a chance to pay a visit to their land in mermaid form, Trot is enthusiastic, and Bill is too loyal to let her go off without him. So begins their sojourn among the sea fairies. They see amazing sights in the land of Queen Aquarine and King Anko (including an octopus who

910-466: The next year with Sky Island . Unfortunately for author and publisher, the two volumes of the new projected series did not meet with the same success as the Oz books previously had. The first edition of The Sea Fairies sold 12,400 copies in its initial year on the market, where The Emerald City of Oz had sold 20,000. Even when Baum's books experienced a major resurgence in interest and sales in 1918, The Sea Fairies sold only 611 copies that year while

945-485: The rainbow who already knows Button Bright from The Road to Oz , descends from the rainbow to rescue him and his friends. She helps Tormaline, the Queen of the Pinkies, re-interpret the law in a way which allows the strangers to stay. Polychrome also discovers another quirk in the Pinkies' law: whichever person in the kingdom has the lightest skin shall be Queen. Since Trot's skin is paler than Tormaline's, Trot becomes Queen of

980-535: The right to vote with the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920, the year after his death. Baum's mother-in-law Matilda Joslyn Gage was a leading feminist of her generation, and influenced Baum's views. Baum was not uncritical of these trends, and pokes some fun at the feminist and suffragette movement in his books – the most obvious example being General Jinjur and her Army of Revolt in The Marvelous Land of Oz . Yet Baum also had

1015-567: The same 1911–12 period, The Flying Girl and The Daring Twins , neither of which was a long-term success. Disappointing sales inspired Baum and Reilly & Britton to view a return to Oz as an obvious and necessary step, leading to the publication of The Patchwork Girl of Oz and the Little Wizard Stories of Oz the next year, 1913. In 1918, however, Baum wrote that he thought Sky Island would probably be remembered as his best work. The Sea Fairies The Sea Fairies

1050-453: The sequel, instrument trouble in Steve's new hydroplane forces Orissa and her friend and passenger Sybil to set down on a remote island. (Baum would structure a similar story, of two girls adventuring, in his final Oz book, Glinda of Oz , later in the decade.) The second novel is less an aviation tale and more of a straight adventure story than its predecessor. Baum's publisher Sumner C. Britton had

1085-493: The terrifying prospect of becoming a human/goat patch. Trot must enter the Blue City to rescue him, using a ring of invisibility to conceal herself. Ultimately, with help from a Pinkie-witch, a friendly Blueskin citizen (there is one), and the goat itself, she manages to rescue Cap'n Bill and capture the Boolooroo. With the Boolooroo removed from command, the blue army stands down, peace is declared, and Trot becomes "Booloorooess" of

Sky Island - Misplaced Pages Continue

1120-404: The villain is eventually defeated by the forces of good. Trot and Cap'n Bill are returned to human form, safe and dry after their undersea adventure. As many readers and critics have observed, Baum's Oz in particular and his fantasy novels in general are dominated by puissant and virtuous female figures; the archetype of the father-figure plays little role in Baum's fantasy world. The Sea Fairies

1155-449: Was dedicated to the author's sister, Mary Louise Baum Brewster. Trot , a little girl who lives on the coast of southern California, meets a strange little boy with a large umbrella. Button Bright has been using his family's magic umbrella to take long-range journeys from his Philadelphia home, and he has gotten as far as California. After an explanation of how the magic umbrella works, the two children, joined by Cap'n Bill , decide to take

1190-419: Was followed by a sequel, The Flying Girl and Her Chum , published the next year, 1912. Both books were illustrated by Joseph Pierre Nuyttens, the artist who also illustrated Baum's Annabel and Phoebe Daring in 1912. As with Baum's other books for girls, these two novels were published under the pseudonym " Edith Van Dyne ." Baum lived during an era of increasing suffragette agitation; women gained

1225-442: Was their star writer, Reilly & Britton rejected the first version of his 1916 book Mary Louise , "presumably because the heroine was not sufficiently idealized." Though unhappy with their decision, Baum re-wrote the book to deliver a more tame heroine. Dr. Edwin P. Ryland, a Methodist minister and a personal friend of Baum, maintained that if Baum had not pursued his vocation of writing for children "he might have been one of

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