So, if we are talking about continiations of the Oz, I really what to introduce to you some Soviet books... Called "The Wisard of the Emerald Town". Sounds familliar, right? So, some Soviet autors, while trying to translate other books, apparantly went crazy, and created their own retelling of the story, with similar characters, but sometimes entirly diffrent story and meaning (like, original Pinocchio and Soviet "Buratino" have almost nothing in common, but main character being made from wood by Carlo). So, "The Wisard if the Emerald town" is the retelling, and this story is known amongst the russian-speaking kids way better, then the "The Wisard of Oz" (I, for example, only read the Oz in the middle school, as it was our summer homework for English classes). But it does not end there. The autor (Alexandr Volkov) desided not to stop there and wrote... Eight sequels. The last one features alien race attaking "Magical Land" (the name of the "Oz" in the retelling), and the conflict is solved by starting a revolution of the oppressed class of alinens. Yep. Oh, and Scarescrow becomes the leader of the Emerald tower in these series.
Sorry for hijacking your asks with this (probably poor written) infodump about my favorite childhood book...😓
I have learned So much in So little time and I don't know how to handle this information
So the first book is NEARLY identical to Wizard of Oz, but after that the series goes off rails immediately and completely. Although I'd say it stays ON the rails more like, because from what I read of Oz it goes HARD on whimsical weird fairy creatures, while the Wizard of Emerald Town sequels feature such fantastic beings as:
- Giants
- Talking animals
- I'm pretty sure that's it. All the other new characters are just human.
The series features no less than three revolutions - first the place gets conquered by a guy who randomly became able to animate wood and immediately made himself an army of wooden soldiers (the protagonist gets a message asking her to come and help, and her uncle comes with her on a balloon and they lead a rebellion), then the protagonist gets lost in a cave system and comes out in magic land's underground ruled by a cruel and unjust monarchy which they proceed to overthrow (this is honestly just a stock soviet kid lit plot), and then in the last book. That one. Also the wooden army guy ended up retiring, regretting his warmongering ways, and was eventually an ally.
Also the protagonist is inexplicably named Ellie instead of Dorothy, and eventually stays home with her parents as she grows up, and the adventures are taken over by her little cousin Annie and iirc her best friend boy.
It's a completely and fully different genre than the Oz books, and the fact that basically the same first book leads to both equally organically blows my fucking mind.
It gets better: the Emerald City books by Aleksandr Volkov became so popular that eventually another writer, Sergey Sukhinov, wrote his own fanfiction/continuation of Volkov's retelling, but his books were the continuation of Volkov's first book (The Wizard of the Emerald City) only, disregarding everything that happened later. So no wooden soldiers, no Cousin Annie, no other characters or events that appeared in Volkov's later books. Instead, Ellie grows up in the ordinary world and then, already as an old woman, becomes a teenager again through the spells cast by the fairies who sought her out so that she helps them get into the Magical Land, and returns there. It's more of a children's high fantasy thing, with knights, monsters, evil wizards, magical swords, and stuff like that. There are eleven books in the series, not counting the spin-offs for even younger children (?); I've only read the first six. If you think alien revolution is an unexpected plot point, wait until I tell you about the founder of the Magical Land being a native of Atlantis, or about the alchemist Paracelsus and Koschei the Deathless (a figure from Russian folklore) both being among those who seek refuge in the Magical Land because elsewhere there is no place for magic anymore.