Handy Mandy in Oz
Cover of Handy Mandy in Oz
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| Author | Ruth Plumly Thompson |
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| Illustrator | John R. Neill |
| Cover artist | John R. Neill |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | The Oz Books |
| Genre | Fantasy |
| Publisher | Reilly & Lee |
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Publication date
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1937 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
Handy Mandy in Oz (1937) is the thirty-first of the Oz books created by L. Frank Baum and his successors, and the seventeenth written by Ruth Plumly Thompson. It was illustrated by John R. Neill.
The book's heroine is an "honest and industrious" goat-girl named Mandy, who grazes her flock on the slopes of Mt. Mern (a location otherwise unidentified).
The story opens with a bang and a splash: an underground spring erupts in a geyser that blasts Mandy into the sky. The force propels her across the Deadly Desert to Oz; she lands in the little principality of Keretaria in the Munchkin Country, her impact cushioned by the power of a magic blue daisy. Mandy finds a silver hammer, and meets a white ox with golden horns; she blunders into the court of King Kerr of Keretaria and his courtiers. They are outraged by the intrusion of such an outlandish figure — for Mandy has seven arms and hands. As Mandy explains,
Mandy, for her part, is amazed to meet so many two-handed people; on Mt. Mern, everyone has seven hands.
Mandy is reprieved from the dungeons by Nox the Royal Ox, who takes her as his personal slave. Mandy and Nox quickly become friends. (It is Nox who gives the girl her nickname, Handy Mandy.) Nox is preoccupied by the political situation of Keretaria: the rightful king, a boy named Kerry, has disappeared, and his throne has been usurped by his uncle Kerr. Mandy discovers that the Royal Ox' horns are have magic powers: they can be unscrewed from his head, and when they are, the right horn grants wishes, and his left horn offers clues. When a clue indicates that King Kerry can be found at a place called the Silver Mountain, the enterprising Mandy leads Nox on a search for the missing monarch.
They swim rivers and survive a flood on their way to the Gillikin Country. A doorway hidden under a waterfall leads them to a subterranean world under the Silver Mountain. The domain is ruled by an evil and ambitious tyrant called the Wizard Wutz. Wutz controls a subversive network of spies and secret agents located in many parts of the land of Oz. He is plotting to have his agents steal all the main magical artifacts of Oz. They actually do steal the Magic Picture, Glinda's Great Book of Records, and the jug that is the confinement vessel of Ruggedo, the Gnome King (he was transformed into a jug at the end of Pirates in Oz). Mandy and Nox learn that old King Kerr is one of Wutz' agents and that Wutz is holding the rightful King Kerry prisoner.
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