Captain Salt in Oz [Paperback]

Ruth Plumly Thompson (Author)

Book Description

Book 30 in The Wizard of Oz

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 308 pages
• Publisher: Books of Wonder (June 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0929605489
• ISBN-13: 978-0929605487
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #113,664 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not much Oz, October 11, 2005

By 

John A Lee III "jal3" (San Antonio, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Captain Salt in Oz (Paperback)

L. Frank Baum set a precedent early on for having Oz stories that take place mostly outside of Oz. Even so, they always wound up back in the famous fairyland at some point. This volume doesn't even do that. Oz appears only at the periphery.

The story brings back some of Thompson's characters from a previous volume. Captain Salt has been designated as the royal explorer of Oz and he stops of to pick up King Ato of the Octagon Isle to serve as his cook as he goes off exploring. Roger the Read Bird also has to come along to keep things stirred up. The crew sets off on a voyage of discovery and, of course, adventure. Oz only appears as the imperial power claiming the new lands.

Early on, the explorers pick up a young prince being held captive by savages and his guardian hippo. The young prince turns out to be the king of another fairyland on a legendary continent and the crew sets out to restore him against the wishes of the usurpers.

Thompson usually does well with her own characters as opposed to using Baum's. That is marginally the case with this book as well but it does not read as well as most of her others. It is a fair story but nothing to get overly excited about.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a wonderful book!, September 22, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Captain Salt in Oz (Paperback)

This book is super. It preserves the curious innocence of the original series of 14 Oz books, but also presents a swashbuckling adventure in lively language. Thompson's view of Oz retains Baum's view of Oz, but is presented in such a different way that Oz becomes a new fun experience. I highly recommend this book

1.0 out of 5 stars Pirate Ships Are Tonic, January 31, 2003

By 

J. E. Barnes - See all my reviews

This review is from: Captain Salt in Oz (Paperback)

In the first half of the 20th century, publisher Reilly & Lee provided the lucky American children with a new Oz title every year for decades. Looking back on the series today, it seems clear that the quality of the Oz books understandably suffered as a result of this policy. Royal Historians Baum, Thompson, and Neill at some point all submitted material that seemed forced, as if it were traced from an overused blueprint rather than created from inspiration with enthusiasm.

Thompson's tenure was winding down by the time she wrote Captain Salt In Oz (1936), a novel that suffers, as all the worst of the Oz books do, from being in plot and theme about nothing in particular. As in Thompson's The Silver Princess In Oz (1938), much of the writing is leaden and almost impossible to follow comfortably. Captain Salt In Oz reads like a manuscript in which the primary story has been extracted; worse, its narrative could have been told in one - fourth of its 306 pages.

Blending together elements from Ballantyne's 'The Coral Island,' Kipling's 'Captains Courageous,' and Burroughï's Tarzan mythos, Captain Salt In Oz, while occasionally lively in tone, comes to little except some very mild adventures at sea. Ex - pirate and present - day "Royal Oz Explorer" Captain Salt and ship's cook Ato, out colonizing for Ozma on the high seas, rescue petulant young king Tandy from a tropical island prison. Neurotically obsessed with maintaining his regal status while on board the galleon (the Crescent Moon, in homage to Henry Hudson's Half Moon), in time Tandy learns to discard his notions of elitism and live life as the carefree young boy he really is. The trouble is that there is no tension, drama, or adversity in Tandy's catharsis: the waters surrounding him are not stormy and perilous, but brackish and tepid. No villains threaten; no obstacles frustrate. Considering that the story takes place in Oz, where almost anything can happen, almost nothing does.

Captain Salt In Oz is further out at sea that it realizes, and not waving but drowning. No members of the Oz royal family appear, and while pacifist Captain Salt is an energetic, colorful character, he is given little to do but reflect fondly on his previous life as a cutlass - wielding buccaneer. Thompson had an extreme weakness for generic boy kings, and Tandy is in no way distinguishable from any of those that came before him. Those who would like to experience what Thompson made of Oz should consider her excellent Kabumpo In Oz (1922) instead.