''The Wishing Horse of Oz'' (

1935 Events January * January 7 – Italian premier Benito Mussolini and French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval conclude an agreement, in which each power agrees not to oppose the other's colonial claims. * January 12 – Amelia Earhart ...

) is the twenty-ninth in the series of

Oz books The Oz books form a book series that begins with ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' (1900) and relates the fictional history of the Land of Oz. Oz was created by author L. Frank Baum, who went on to write fourteen full-length Oz books. All of Baum's b ...

created by L. Frank Baum and his successors, and the fifteenth written by

Ruth Plumly Thompson Ruth Plumly Thompson (27 July 1891 – 6 April 1976) was an American writer of children's stories, best known for writing many novels placed in Oz, the fictional land of L. Frank Baum's classic children's novel '' The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' ...

. It was Illustrated by John R. Neill. This book marked the point at which Thompson had written more Oz books than Baum himself. This Oz mystery starts in the small, poor kingdom of Skampavia, where King Skamperoo wishes for a horse using enchanted emerald necklaces. When Chalk, a talking Horse from Oz, falls from the sky, Skamperoo decides the emeralds must be from the Emerald City, and decides to conquer all of Oz. He magically causes all the residents of Oz to forget their rightful rulers and accept him as their emperor instead. Only Dorothy and Pigasus, the flying pig, are able to remember Princess Ozma, the true ruler of Oz, and together they set out to rescue her. The mystery in this story is how to make the necklaces grant wishes; only the horse Chalk knows how to do this. This was the last Oz book to feature illustrations in color, and only the first edition and the International Wizard of Oz Club edition (1990) have them.

Copyright status

This book, along with Thompson's next four, did not get renewed for copyright, making them

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired ...

and freely readable online.

References

External links

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On ''The Wishing Horse of Oz''
Oz (franchise) books 1935 American novels 1935 children's books 1935 fantasy novels Fictional horses {{1930s-child-novel-stub