The Wish Express [Paperback]

Ruth Plumly Thompson (Author), David Maxine (Editor), Hammon (Illustrator)

Book Description

All Aboard The WISH Express! Next stop ADVENTURE! In her very first novel, Ruth Plumly Thompson takes a boy and his dog on a magical trolley ride through the imagination! Originally serialized in 1916 - this is the first-ever collection of the complete story! Thompson exhibits all of the qualities she later displayed when she took over writing the famous Wizard of Oz series. It s a tale of self-discovery, talking animals, amazing little towns, great new friends, and a happy ending! Our spiffy new trade-paperback features magical flip-book style TROLLEY ACTION! As you read along, the Wish Express Trolley zooms along the running-titles and if you flip through the pages you can watch the journey!

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Ruth Plumly Thompson wrote twenty-one volumes in the famous Oz series. She introduced such beloved characters as Jinnicky the Red Jinn, Sir Hokus, Speedy, Terrybubble, and best-loved of all, Kabumpo, the elegant elephant. Thompson was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July 27, 1891. She had two sisters, Dorothy and Janet, and one brother, Richard. When Thompson was two years old her father became night editor of The New York Times and the family moved to Brooklyn, New York. Her father died suddenly in 1895 and Thompson's mother returned to Philadelphia with the four young children. In 1914 Thompson began writing an elaborate children's page for the Philadelphia Public Ledger. The weekly page contained poems, stories, fables, helpful columns about pets, dolls, toys, and much more. Her first book, The Perhappsy Chaps (1918) was a collection of fairy poems from the Public Ledger, and a similar volume of fairy tales, The Princess of Cozytown, was published in 1922. In 1920 Thompson was contracted by the Reilly and Lee Company to continue the Oz series after L. Frank Baum's death in 1919. Her first Oz book, The Royal Book of Oz (1921), was credited to Baum with the additional byline "Enlarged and edited by Ruth Plumly Thompson." But the book was solely the work of Thompson. In 1921, she gave up her job at the Public Ledger and devoted herself to writing an Oz book each year until 1939. Reilly and Lee also published an omnibus volume of Thompson's Ledger material called The Wonder Book (1929). From the mid-1930s to mid-1940s Thompson worked as editor of the David McKay Company's King Comics, providing an editorial page and short story for almost every issue. She wrote editorials for Ace Comics and Magic Comics, too. David McKay also published Thompson's King Kojo (1936), originally serialized in the pages of King Comics. In the 1940s and '50s Thompson sold many stories to Jack and Jill magazine and she wrote Jack and Jill's "Perky Puppet" page until December 1969. In her latter years she dusted off an abandoned Oz manuscript called Yankee in Oz which was published by The International Wizard of Oz Club in 1972, and she began work turning another unpublished manuscript, The Enchanted Island, into a new Oz book. Ruth Plumly Thompson died on April 6, 1976, at the age of eighty-four following surgery for a perforated ulcer. Her final Oz book, The Enchanted Island of Oz, was published a couple months after her death.

Product Details

• Paperback: 129 pages
• Publisher: Hungry Tiger Press (November 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1929527225
• ISBN-13: 978-1929527229
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,931,675 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars "Be careful what you wish for because it might come true", March 26, 2011

By 

F. Orion Pozo "Orion Pozo" (Raleigh, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Wish Express (Paperback)

Originally serialized for the Philadelphia Public Ledger in 1916, Ruth Plumly Thompson's first novel The Wish Express starts when a boy named Berens, discontented with his math homework, wishes he was someone else somewhere else. The next thing he knows, a giant Discontented Bug with 19 arms and 17 legs has grabbed him and his dog Rags and is flying him to the wish trolley ... and Rags can talk! The trolley is filled with other discontented wishers, both human and animal who must make what Thompson calls "the perilous journey on a wish through Talktown and the State of Discontentment to the misty city of Somewhere Else" to have their wishes granted.

The publisher, Hungry Tiger Press, calls it "a tale of self-discovery, talking animals, amazing little towns, great new friends, and a happy ending!" The book definitely shows the delightful play of words and interesting characterization that Thompson will later display writing 21 novels as L. Frank Baum's successor to the title of The Royal Historian of Oz.

Never before printed in its entirety, the Hungry Tiger Press paperback features a flip-book Wish Express Trolley created by Eric Shanower that moves along the top of the pages as you read. If you flip through the pages you can watch it move. Also included are the original illustrations by Public Ledger artist James Hammon. The Wish Express is a delightful illustration of the proverb "Be careful what you wish for because it might come true" that has lost none of its charm in the 95 years since its first publication.