Lost Princess of Oz

Like the previous Oz book, "Rinkitink in Oz," this was an outing by Baum that scores by deviating a bit from the standard Oz formula. The characters in the book are on a journey, as usual, but instead of trying to get to the Emerald City, the characters are departing that city to find the missing Princess Ozma who, along with most of the powerful magical objects in Oz, has vanished. Furthermore, Baum puts together one of the largest primary casts ever in an Oz book, including Dorothy and Toto, the Wizard, the Patchwork Girl, the Sawhorse, the Cowardly Lion, Betsy Bobbin and Hank, Trot and Button-Bright and the Woozy, as well as adding the Frogman, Cayke the Cookie Cook and the Big Lavender Bear and the Little Pink Bear.
While it's nice to see to many characters, it does hurt the book somewhat -- it shows really how superfluous Besty and Trot are with Dorothy around, and it includes a bizarre little subplot with Toto that doesn't really add much. Furthermore, the ending is really syrupy and saccharine, even for an Oz book.
The addition of the Frogman is a major plus, though -- he is easily the most entertaining new character added to the series since Scraps the Patchwork Girl, and it was nice to have a book that for once didn't rely on the old villains like the Nome King or the old deus ex machina of Ozma's magic picture and Glinda's magic book. In fact, I kind of wish those two items had stayed lost -- other Oz books rely on them entirely too much for their resolution.

The four stars reflect the mastery of Baum's storytelling. This is an excellent novel with a well developed plot and unique characters. The only problem I have is that this Del Rey edition is poorly edited. For example, pages 111-112 are missing words and sentences, and on pages 112-113 words and sentences are repeated. Throughout the book, I have found several misspelled, repeated, or omitted words. I have not encountered any of these problems while reading the other 10 Del Rey edition OZ books. Hopefully this problem does not continue in the remaining 3 books.