Title: The Giant Horse of Oz
Author: Ruth Plumly Thompson
Type: Fiction
Page Count/Review Word Count: 246
Rating: 3.5/5
I mean, it’s another Wizard of Oz book. What more do you want from me?
By this point in the series, it’s starting to feel a bit samey, and the only real standout here was the Public Benefactor, a statue from our world that was given life after someone discovered a book in a second hand jacket and decided to read the magic aloud from it. I quite liked him, mainly because as soon as he came to life, people started making his life hell, running away from him and even spraying him with hoses from fire trucks.
I read this as part of my ongoing buddy read with Joel Swagman, although he’s about ten books behind me by now and so I’m not sure if it still counts as a buddy read. I’ve got to be honest, if he’s reading this and trying to decide whether to stick with the series, I’d probably tell him not to. But I’m now so far in that it’d feel like a failure if I bailed.
All in all, it’s just another Oz book, with many of the same themes and even the same plot beats that we’ve seen before. It’s got to the point where it’s starting to imitate itself, and that’s okay because that’s what the series is all about.
