"The Amazing Land of Wew"
By John G. Kaufer
Published by The Steck Company, 1954
Front cover, I'm guessing this copy may be a library binding. No dust jacket present. Blank endpapers.
Frontispiece and title page.
The story in a nutshell. A twelve year old boy named Joen lives on a ranch in Texas with his mother. His favorite books are a series (similar to the Oz books) about a magic fairyland called Wew. One day he's out herding sheep, he takes a nap and Nazala the Gentle Witch comes to him in a dream and tells him the land of Wew needs his help. He follows her directions and enters a forbidden cave with his dog Bill and his pet lamb Nama. They fall through a hole in the cavern and begin a series of adventures through places like Tishto City, the City of Jewels, the Province of Color, the White City, the Wooden City, Ant City, Limba, and the Agrola Sea in order to save the land of Wew from an evil magician named Winfro.
The book feels heavily influenced (if not at times almost plagiarized) by L. Frank Baum's work. A child accompanied by talking animals and grotesques has to save a magic land before returning home. The title echoes "The Marvelous Land of Oz." When the Jeweled Man describes his creation, it seems ripped straight from the pages of "Patchwork Girl of Oz." Wooda the Wooden Girl's birth is similar to events from "Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz" and "Tik-Tok of Oz." The travelers fly with detachable wings borrowed from the Tishto birds, reminiscent of the Gargoyles wings in "Dorothy and the Wizard." The Jeweled Man is vain and concerned with tarnishing similar to the Tin Woodman and his fear of rusting. The live snowman fears fire like Baum's Scarecrow. And when the adventurers travel under the sea they are enchanted so that they are still surrounded by a thin layer of air as in "The Sea Fairies."
It seems strange to release something so heavily infused with Baum's work in 1954 when Reilly and Lee had just rebooted the Oz books the year before with "The Hidden Valley of Oz" but the Steck Company seems to have been a small, regional publishing house and they must not have cared. Some information on the Steck Company can be found here.
Other than it's derivative qualities, my main criticism of the book is a large number of unnecessary (and sometimes redundant) characters. Nim the Great and Queen Tazoen could have easily been combined. Then the group of travelers is stuffed with characters like Anders, Shirla, and Bashful the skunk who do little to nothing after they're introduced.
Still the book is such a blatant Baum imitation that it's a fun curiosity and an enjoyable read. The ending of the book is clearly set up to introduce a sequel and possibly a series; it would have been interesting to see what else Kaufer could have come up with and if he would have developed a more personal voice.
Illustration wise, every chapter has a full page color illustration or a small color medallion at the beginning of the chapter. There are no black and white illustrations with the characters though there are small illustrations of signs interspersed throughout the text. Warren Hunter's watercolor illustrations are attractive and faithful to the text. You can find more information on Hunter here and all of the illustrations from "The Amazing Land of Wew" (save the signs) are shown below.
No comments:
Post a Comment