Yellow Brick War

Yellow Brick War by Danielle Paige

This is the third volume of the four volume Dorothy Must Die series. It picks up where the second volume, The Wicked Will Rise, left off, with both Dorothy Gale and the Alliance of the Wicked, along with Amy Gumm, back in Amy's home town in Kansas. While Dorothy escapes back to Oz, the Wicked are marooned. Their only hope to get back to Oz is for Amy to find the silver slippers that Dorothy originally used to return to Kansas. Amy has no magic in Kansas, and has been presumed dead since the tornado blew her to Oz. While the witches hide, Amy returns to her mother's home and her high school. She searches for the shoes that will allow them to return to Oz and defeat Dorothy.

As with the previous two novels in the series Danielle Paige shows a good grasp of the Baumian characters of Oz, and has a clever way of modernizing them to make them of interest to a modern Young Adult audience. Each book introduces more of Baum's characters, and brutally murders others. Like the first two, Yellow Brick War is best read as part of the series, as the story picks up and ends abruptly. I gave the book four stars instead of five because I feel the author is, at times, too free in her adaptation of Baum's characters, revisioning them for a modern audience in a way that is jarring and discordant to people who know them well from reading Baum's books. Also the violent treatment of the battle scenes is not to my taste.

The Wicked Will Rise

The Wicked Will Rise by Danielle Paige

This is the second volume of the four volume Dorothy Must Die series. It picks up where the first volume, Dorothy Must Die, left off, right after an epic battle in the war of the wicked witches against Dorothy Gale and her followers, the Scarecrow, Cowardly Lion, Tin Woodman and Glinda the Good. The Emerald City is in shambles, and the forces of the Wicked have been scattered. Our heroine, Amy Gumm, is being rescued, along with Ozma, by a pair of flying monkeys, who plan to take them to Lulu, the Queen of the Flying Monkeys.

In the first book Amy Gumm was taken by a tornado to Oz. Only the fairyland of L. Frank Baum's imagination is turned upside down, with a tyrannical Dorothy draining all the magic in Oz to increase her despotic rule. Amy was recruited by The Revolutionary Order of the Wicked and trained to be the person to assassinate Dorothy. Their coup ends up being the first battle in a war, and The Wicked Will Rise tells the tale of Amy's continuing adventures, trying to reunite with the rest of the Wicked and complete her mission. First a visit to the Flying Monkeys and then a search for Polychrome, the Rainbow's daughter, leads up to her next confrontation with Dorothy. Amy is with Ozma through this whole book and learns much more about Ozma's past and watches as Ozma starts to regain her fairy powers.

Danielle Paige has a good grasp of the Baumian characters of Oz, and has a clever way of modernizing them to make them of interest to a modern Young Adult audience. This book is best read as part of the series as it picks up and ends abruptly. I give the book four stars instead of five because I feel the author is at times too free in her adaptation of Baum's characters, revisioning them for a modern audience in a way that is jarring and discordant to people who know them well from reading Baum's books.

Dorothy Must Die

Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige

Danielle Paige has written a four volume series of books based on the characters of L. Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz series. The first volume Dorothy Must Die tells the story of how a misfit high school student named Amy Gumm, who lives in a trailer in Kansas with her alcoholic mother, gets swept away by a tornado and lands on the Yellow Brick Road in Oz. While this is Baum's Oz, it is a dystopian version of the magical land where Dorothy Gail, the Good Witch Glinda, the Scarecrow, Lion, and Tin Woodman terrorize the land. They are opposed by the evil witches who call themselves the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked. As Amy tries to understand and make her way in this very different Oz than the one in Baum's books, everyone's advice to her is to not trust anyone. This first volume introduces the major factions of this world in conflict, as the Wickeds develop a plan to kill Dorothy.

Unlike Baum's Oz, Dorothy Must Die has a fair amount of violence and cruelty. The action is fast paced and I found the books compelling reading. Paige has done her homework and knows Oz very well. So although this is a very different time in Oz, there is a great depth of characters and locations that will appeal to loyal fans of Oz.

There are three more books in the series as well as a set of three volumes of Oz Stories that accompany the four volume series so this book is the bait designed to pique your interest enough to continue on through the rest of the series. This it does admirably well, with the expected ending that leaves matters unresolved and provides the opening 15 pages of the next title The Wicked Will Rise attached to the end. I know I will be reading it soon.