Book 1: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, better known and loved today as simply The Wizard of Oz, is a tale that has been cherished by readers and listeners throughout the years. This timeless story has inspired Broadway shows, cartoon series, and many films over the past few generations. I hope that this book has inspired your sense of creativity and wonder as much as it has mine.

In the story, the Cowardly Lion believes that he has depleted the reserve of courage imbued in him by the Wizard (as told in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz). Someone soon misdirects the Lion into thinking that he can only replenish his courage by eating a courageous man. Since the Lion dislikes the notion of harming anyone, he resolves to do the deed as quickly as possible, and so embarks on his quest. Unbeknownst to the Lion, he is being hunted by two would-be hunters: a circus clown named Notta Bit More, and an orphaned boy named Bobby Downs, whom Notta calls Bob Up.

Princess Ozma has ruled so wisely and happily in the wonderful Land of Oz for so long that most of us have forgotten the strange story of the Lost King of Oz—Ozma's father. As everyone in Oz knows, the King was transformed from his royal self by Mombi, the wicked old Gilliken witch, and lost his throne and his crown when he, himself, was lost. In this new Oz book the Royal Historian tells how Snip, the little buttonboy, and Pajuka, the great white goose.

A voyage on the famous Nonestic Ocean! What could be more thrilling than that? We—many of us—have taken trips on the prosaic Atlantic or even Pacific, but have we found a SEA FOREST with flying fish and swimming birds? Have we been pursued by a real SEA SERPENT, or had our ship transfixed by the immense ivory tusk of a NARWHAL? Have we come upon the glittering island of PEAKENSPIRE, or made friends with a charming talking hippopotamus? Yet all these things and more befall Captain Salt, one time Pirate and now Royal Explorer of Oz, and his merry crew.

On many a day had Handy, the Goat Girl of Mern, pursued her goats up and down the rocky eminences of her native mountain. And never—NEVER—in her fourteen or so years' experience had she been blown up by a mountain spring. But there comes, in every one's experience a day which is unlike every other day, and so it was with the Goat Girl. As she was pursuing What-a-butter, her favorite goat, there was a sudden crash, a whish, and up flew the slab of rock on which she was standing, up and away. The adventures into which she was carried by this simple though awefull beginning take a whole book to relate.