Inkheart and L. Frank Baum's Oz

Five stars, of course. She's one of my favorite children's authors. And I've read this one before, but now I'm going to finish the series! The second book is even dedicated to Brendan Fraser! Think they should have made all three into movies. The second one is going to be really a fun book because, unlike the movie version where Dustfinger goes home in the end, he finally makes it home at the beginning of the second book. Then Meggie and Farid go to the Inkworld! That's going to be a fun story. We finally get to go see this magical place Fenoglio created!

Also, finally finished reading this:

(SPOILERS BELOW!) Sorry to say that, while it was good, it wasn't the best. By this point Baum really wanted to stop writing Oz books and move on to other things. I bet by the end of his life, he really hated his series. He even ended this book as follows:

"Chapter 30: How the Story of Oz Came to an End

The writer of these Oz stories has recieved a little note from Princess Dorothy of Oz which, for a time, has made him feel rather disconcerted. The note was written on a broad, white feather from a stork's wing, and it said, "You will never hear anything more about Oz, because we are now cut off forever from the rest of the world. But Toto and I will always love you and all the other children who love us. Dorothy Gale."
This seemed to me too bad, at first, for Oz is a very interesting fairyland. Still, we have no right to feel grieved, for we have had enough of the history of the Land of Oz to fill six story books, and from its quaint people and their strange adventures we have been able to learn many useful and amusing things.
So good luck to little Dorothy and her companions. May they live long in their invisible country and be very happy!"

Seriously, he ends the book like this. I've heard that he grew bored with it and only continued because he kept receiving letters from fans asking for more books about Dorothy. The second book didn't have Dorothy in it, he'd intended the story to take a different course, but everyone wanted Dorothy. I wish he'd written the series as he'd originally planned. The first two books are my favorites. This is a lesson to writers who write for their fans. I can understand that, but at the same time you need to write the story for you. I write my books for me. If I wrote them for others, then I wouldn't be happy with my work.

Baum went on to write another nine books in the series, as far as I know. I have the original Oz series compilation, but heard there are 17 not 15 like I have. No idea. I worry how the rest of the books in the series are. You can see in these first six how he grew bored of it. Started randomly creating odd things like Utensia? I think he went around his house and took ordinary objects and turned them into little towns in Oz out of boredom and lack of inspiration. Part of this book was good, the gathering of an army by Roquat the Red to storm Oz, but then it switches to Dorothy meeting more random creatrues in more random towns that are mostly useless and space-fillers. Like he was trying to fill a word count and didn't really care anymore. Sad.