Reviews for Tik-tok of Oz

The average rating for Tik-tok of Oz based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-01-27 00:00:00 Lisa Gianakos Ann Soforth is a Queen of a tiny Kingdom which is a part of Oz. One day she decided sweeping floors is below queen's dignity (her Kingdom was that small) and some conquering is in order. She conscripted practically every single man and went out to conquer and plunder. At the same time a girl named Betsy Bobbin was swept overboard from a ship just before it sank. We have no idea about who she is and what was she doing on the ship - for all we know she might have even been a part of the crew. Again at the same time Shaggy Man - who unsurprisingly reminds me of... well... Shaggy: armed with the Love Magnet meets Polychrome who got stuck in the magic land because she did not get back on the rainbow before it disappeared. At this point I experienced a severe sense of déjà vu. An army trying to conquer Oz made its appearance in The Marvelous Land of Oz. A girl who went overboard and ended up in a magic land was prominent in Ozma of Oz - it was none other than Dorothy. Shaggy Man with Love Magnet already met Polychrome who ended up in the magic land for the same reason in The Road to Oz; for some reason they do not remember meeting each other before. Can we say recycling? Sure we can! I mentioned overpopulation of Oz in my other review. New characters appear in each book and they all have to be shown thus each returning one gets less and less screen time. I think it finally became a real problem as some of the all-time favorites do not even get mentioned here - I am looking at Scarecrow and Tin Woodman. Even Ozma and Dorothy only appear in the last two chapters. Tik-Tok who gave the title to the book did not do anything even remotely exciting here except getting disabled in different ways. The things became better once the three different plot-lines started to converge. This was the reason enough for the final rating I gave - grudgingly - to the installment: 3 stars. There is a lesson here kids: even if you are a classic of children literature, if you recycle previous stories - even if they are your own - shame on you!

Review # 2 was written on 2011-08-18 00:00:00 James Carros Mr. Baum, Mr. Baum, Mr. Baum. Really?? Don't you remember that Shaggy and Polychrome met each other and traveled together three books ago? Or that the Love Magnet doesn't need to be seen to work? And why on earth did you change the Nome King's name from Roquat to Ruggedo? Even my 9-year-old remembered that Ozma had told him his name after he drank from the Waters of Oblivion before she sent him back home through the tunnel. If Ozma has the Nome King's Magic Belt, she doesn't need the Wizard to transport people anywhere - she can do it herself. And your mental map of Oz is completely screwed up. Glinda was in the *south*, not the north. A little consistency! Is that too much to ask?! More so than the others, this book seemed to be a rehash and thrown-together bit of a bunch of stories. (For one example, Dorothy and Billina shipwrecked back in book #3, just like Betsy and Hank were in this one.) I liked the puns (Queen Ann Soforth) and the alliteration in every chapter title ("Tik-Tok Tackles a Tough Task"), but, I'm afraid, little else. For more book reviews, come visit my blog, Build Enough Bookshelves.