The Toki Pona Wizard of Oz

 Hello lovelies! 

I have just gotten the most fascinating version of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz for my book collection. Has anyone heard of the language Toki Pona? 

According to Wikipedia:

Toki Pona translated as 'the language of good’ is a philosophical artistic constructed language known for its small vocabulary, simplicity, and ease of acquisition  

It was created by Sonja Lang, a Canadian  linguist and translator to simplify her thoughts and communication. 

Toki Pona only has 14 phonemes and focuses on simple, near-universal concepts to maximize expression from very few words. In  her book Toki Pona: The Language of Good, Lang presents around 120 words. Despite the small vocabulary, speakers can understand and communicate, mainly relying on context, combinations of words, and expository sentences to express more specific meanings.

And did I mention that it is all in GLYPHS? That’s right. The title of the book looks like this in Toki Pona:

How amazing is that??? As a very lonely child who didn’t connect well with my peers, I spent years creating secret codes in the hopes that one day there would be a like minded weird friend who would want to write messages back and forth. Bonus points if they wrote it in lemon juice with a toothpick so I could hold the letter over a candle and expose the secret writing. It is for reasons such as this that I was bullied and beaten up frequently as you can imagine. But I digress.

 To see why it is endearing take a look at the table of contents. I love that because there are not words for certain concepts like Scarecrow, Tin Man, Cowardly Lion and Wicked Witch of the West they are described as The Person of Bird Removal, The Metal Person of Plant Cutting, The Strong Beast of Fearful Feelings and The Evil Powerful Woman of the Ending Sun. Click on the photo to enlarge it. 

The illustrations are delightful and the text has an interesting literal but also poetic translation to it such as lines like:

The foot clothing of the Evil Powerful Woman of the Sun's Arrival became the foot clothing of Dorothy. 

I absolutely LOVE this book and the idea of the language. I really want to learn to read and write it. And maybe some day there will be a weird friend who wants to send secret messages in code to each other. 

 

Peep Peep! The making of a Very Useful Engine

 Hello lovelies! It was Thomas the Tank Engine Day at work today. Many people have asked how I made the costume so I will try to give you a little story of how I did it.

This was one not primarily sourced from charity shops. I had to custom sew it to get the effects I wanted. 

Things I bought or sourced from my fabric stash for the shirt and wheels:

·         A long sleeve blue shirt (I love these Fruit of the Loom shirts. I have lots in various colours. They are a decent price, come in lots of colours and I know what size I need)

·         A silver table runner I bought for £1 at the YMCA

·         Some red poly cotton fabric

·         Black, white, royal blue and yellow felt

I also used lots and lots and lots of Bonda-Web. If you don’t know what this miracle stuff is, it is double sided iron on interfacing. You iron it on the back of your fabric, cut out the shape you want, peel off the paper, then iron your design onto the other bit of fabric (in my case the shirt), then stitch over it. In my experience, Bonda-Web needs top stitching because it will eventually unpeel but is great for holding fiddly designs down without pins so they don’t shift as you try to sew.

I just made stencils for every part of the design then Bonda-Webbed them to the shirt (both front and back)

Then I either machine sewed (the red stripe, the silver stripe, Thomas’s head and body and the number in the box on the back) or hand sewed (the yellow window circles, his eyes, mouth and eyebrows, his accessories at the bottom) them to the shirt. To make his nose 3D I made a circle, sewed around it with a gathered stitch and pulled the circle shut after stuffing it with polyfill fluff. Then I thought my nose was too small so I did it again with a slightly larger circle and stuffed it with fluff as well as the previous too small nose. Then I sewed it by hand to the shirt.

I drew his smile lines with a sharpie. What colour sharpie, you ask? Well, that’s up for debate. I had a grey and a silver. I used the silver on one side, then stopped to make something for my tea, came back and picked up the grey one by accident and then, oh no! The smile lines did not match! After a moment of panic, I carefully traced over the grey line with the silver and then carefully traced over the silver line with grey. Phew! Crisis averted!

I didn’t make the red and silver stripes go all the way to the side seams. I would like to tell you this was because I had anticipated that attaching a non-stretch fabric to a stretchy one would necessitate making a little slit on each side for ease of movement but really I am just crap at measuring and made them a bit too short then couldn’t get it over my hips so had to cut a slit and was thankful I had made a measuring mistake so all’s well that ends well.

To make the ankle wheels I cut out a wheel template in blue and hand stitched it to a black circle while watching Horrible Histories. Then I made some wrapping straps which I sewed to another black circle. Then I pinned and re-pinned on my leg to get a cuff that fit my leg.

Then I sewed Velcro on and made some adjustments—I needed a little dart on one side and a corner clipped but now they fit my leg perfectly.

Then I hand sewed the circle on the leg band to the wheel circle and inserted a slightly smaller circle of cardboard (gold carboard in this case as it is what I had used to spray paint my Medusa crown).

View from the top:

Then on to the hat. The steam coming out has impressed a lot of folks so how did I do it?

I bought:

A stovepipe hat (taller than a top hat) and some invisible hairnets like a dinner lady might wear.

Then I carefully stuffed polyfill fluff into a hairnet and sewed it closed then attached it to a piece of felt. Then I hot glued the felt to the top of the hat. I kept filling hairnets with fluff and using hot glue and tiny stitches to hold them together.

I am very pleased with how it came out. The only slight drawback is I don’t think the shirt cannot be washed. But having spent time in the theatre I know you can just spray it with a bit of Dettol or Lysol and call it square.

What will I make next? Stay tuned!

Everything is Figureoutable

 Hello Lovelies! 

Every year on New Year's Day I like to do a little cutting and pasting to set intentions for the upcoming year. I obsessively hoard any free magazines I can pick up throughout the year and then use them to cut out letters, words and quotations that speak to me. Spiderman used to say that I would have been excellent at kidnapping because I had enough magazines to write dozens of ransom notes.

I saw a book at work with the title EVERYTHING IS FIGUREOUTABLE and I thought "That is what I want my motto to be this year." There are several things that are just really difficult and I don't know how to do them or who to ask to get help and they involve paperwork and filling out forms (UGH) and so the motto "I may not know, but I can figure it out" has already stopped my heart racing 

I thought it might be interesting to have a look over the course of a few blog posts at what I am hoping to achieve this year. Perhaps these are things you want to do as well. Perhaps we can help one another and be accountable to each other to help us live happier, healthier, less anxious lives in 2023.

Here is my Vision Board for the year.  I will pick a few things to talk about each time in no particular order. 

1. STOP AVOIDING ADMIN

As I said I have some outstanding (in the not done sense not the terrific sense) paperwork that must be completed. It took me ages to figure out how to fill out the forms to apply for my mother's Life Insurance claim and while I filled out the papers once and sent them in, something went wrong but I can't know for sure what went wrong without another phone call which I refuse to do because the last call cost be £85. They won't tell me exactly what was left out of the envelope, they just sent a reminder of everything that should have been included leaving me to play Sherlock Holmes and deduce where the problem was.  I have an idea what went wrong/what should have been sent but was not and so I am trying again. 

Admin is not my strong suit. Too many words on a page, being forced to write in ALL CAPS inside tiny prison cell boxes makes my heart race and stomach churn. Spiderman was much more calm than me when it came to filling out forms, but as he is no longer here on this earth, it falls to me to figure it out. By repeating the mantra YOU CAN DO THIS over and over I think I have figured out what to do.  But I have had the forms printed for a week and I just kept ignoring them on the table because I couldn't face filling them out again. Today is my day off and so I plan to devote several hours to reading every form aloud just to be sure I haven't forgotten anything.

Also, when I was trying to figure out how to deal with my mother's Life Insurance I discovered to my horror that I was meant to be filing US income tax for the last NINETEEN YEARS. I don't think I have to pay anything as I make below the threshold but I should have been filing. However, the IRS must know that lots of Expats don't know this because they have a whole page dedicated to Whoops! I didn't know, but now I do, what do I do now? But again, though I know about the website, I have been too afraid to look at what I have to do. American taxes aren't due until April 15th, so the plan is get the Life Insurance done this month and hopefully by next month I should have a cheque which can cover any potential slap-on-the-wrist late fees I may have incurred. Then by March I can look at filing my back US taxes. 

2. QUICK TIDY

   Peeps, I am drowning in clutter. I have always been a bit of a Messy Bessy, but since Spiderman shuffled off this mortal coil I find it harder to put things away. I am TIRED and often just drop things on the first available surface and collapse when I get home. However, this is what happens--it becomes like a terrifying game of The Floor Is Lava or a crazy obstacle course where I might break my neck if I fell down the stairs. This photo was taken on January 2nd and is the worst that it has ever been. Something needs to change.

One of my problems is procrastinating on things that seem insurmountable. The bigger they grow, the more I avoid dealing with them and the more I avoid dealing with them the bigger they grow. And I get looped in anxiety and I can't do anything but feel stressed about not dealing with it. (See above) I read about the "Pomodoro Method" which is basically set a timer and work your butt off until it goes ding. They suggest you buy one of those kitchen timers shaped like a tomato  that go TICK TICK TICK like a deathwatch beetle but I find that ticking like the axe swinging lower and lower in Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum so I just use my phone. I set the timer for 15 minutes, put on a Spotify playlist and work like the dickens until my friendly alarm sound calls out (my alarm is King George's song from Hamilton "Da da dat da, dat da da da da ya da") 

And you know what? It works. Even a 15 minute blitz helps to tackle clutter and if I start getting up early (I will be dealing with sleep and waking in my next post) then I can do 15 minutes in the morning and maybe 15 minutes in the evening. At night when I have been on my feet all day and am exhausted it is harder to do, but I discovered that I can do things like unload the clean dishes from the dish drain or sweep and mop the kitchen floor in the exact amount of time it takes to reheat a bowl of soup on the hob. 

3.FRAMILY

I do love a portmanteau word. Framily is made up of FRIENDS who are FAMILY. I am so blessed that I have such a good support network on this side of the pond. So many US friends were worried about me over these last few years lamenting that I had no FAMILY in the UK. But that is OK because I have FRAMILY. The Amazing Spiderman was my everything--my person that I did everything with. These days, I have different friends who do different things with me. I have friends who like the cinema or going to art classes or mooching around charity shops or going to plays or comic book conventions or museums. I used to do all of those things with Spiderman, but now I get to do them with lots of different people. Is it the same? No, not without him. But I still get to do them and it is very good. So this year I want to spend more time with my FRAMILY.

That's all for today. But in a day or two I will look at some other ways that I hope to be better in the new year. Maybe these are things you struggle with too. I hope it helps. 

Schrodinger's Birthday

Hello lovelies! Today is my UN-BIRTHDAY. My mum's birthday was yesterday and my dad's (heavenly) birthday will be tomorrow. As a child it was very hard to have a December birthday when everyone else in your household had a birthday right at the same time, so the day in between was declared my un-birthday like in Alice in Wonderland.

Spiderman likes to pretend this is not a real holiday, but it totally is. Every year we laugh about it being Schrodinger's birthday--the holiday that is and is not simultaneously happening. Every year he makes a big production of saying in a pantomime gesture behind his hand to an invisible audience that it is not real and I am talking nonsense, but every year I get a gift--so who's laughing now? 

This year I was stunned by not only the gift, but the grand gesture of remembering something I had vaguely mentioned a few weeks ago but also of finding a whopping great bargain. Because i do love a bargain.

Spiderman is great at this sort of thing. He listens and makes a mental note and then surprises me with something personal and meaningful and I run around in a little circle flapping my hands out of joy. 

Fairy Tales are important to me. I write a blog about them every Friday. I published a whole book of them last year. I love illustration. I just made an altered book with 60 illustrations during lockdown. I made a companion art exhibit to go with my book launch last year. Shaun Tan just won the Greenaway award for best illustrations in a children's book. His book The Singing Bones was a huge influence on me when I was making the companion art for my book Wounds: New Openings Into Old Stories. I checked it out of the library half a dozen times while I was creating my artwork.

He created lots of grotesquely beautiful sculptures and then photographed them and I love the juxtaposition of them all.  

When Shaun Tan won the Greenaway, I said to Spiderman I wish I had that book. I regretted not ever buying me a copy. Spiderman said--in that casual dismissive way he does that I fall for every time--"Well, the one we should have gotten you was the collector's edition in the slipcover with the two signed prints, but it is too late now as it was a limited edition." 

I sighed and agreed. Plus it was really expensive, I told myself.  

Well it turns out that that was a big ole lie. Because yesterday, what should arrive in the post but the limited edition of The Singing Bones that he found on a clearance sale at 30% of the original price. 

And you want to see what is cool? The clasps on either side are in the shape of bones that you thread through ribbons. 

 

Here are my two prints signed by Shaun Tan. You can't see the signatures in the photo, but they are both signed.

I love this book because it features some very familiar tales like these:

Red Riding Hood

Rapunzel

Also lesser know tales like these:

Mother Trudy

Foundling

I love it so much. Thank you Amazing Spiderman! Even as you handed it over saying this was definitely NOT for my un-birthday as that holiday does not exist I saw your sly wink and that twinkle you get as you saw how happy I was with my un-birthday gift. Thanks, best beloved. 

There's No Place Like Home--Oz pages 59-60

Hello lovelies! Here we are at the end of our journey .If you are like me and don’t want it to end, then remember there are thirteen other Oz books by L Frank Baum (plus other good ones like The Sea Fairies, Sky Island and the Life and Adventures of Santa Claus) out there just waiting to be read! You can read them all for free here on [PROJECT GUTENBERG}

It has been so wonderful to revisit this book. I truly believe it holds up well and is as delightful as when my mother first shared it with me all those years ago, side by side in the brown recliner. She read me two chapters a night for two years and it is my happiest memory of time spent with her.

Here are the last two pages:

I made the rainbow just like I did at the start of the book by using torn tissue paper  and had it lead diagonally into the desert which I made out of sandpaper and then back to the sepia of Kansas. I made the sepia just a little brighter this time and not as dreary to show that Dorothy had brought a little of the rainbow back with her and is no way an indication that I couldn’t remember how I had made the sepia at the start of the book since it was the first illustration. I did NOT have trouble remembering which paints I used and the story about Dorothy bringing back some magic is in no way a cover story for my inability to have written down my paint formula. So there. I made their little house similar, but slightly different as it did have to be rebuilt.

Dorothy now took Toto up solemnly in her arms, and having said one last good-bye she clapped the heels of her shoes together three times, saying:

"Take me home to Aunt Em!"

Instantly she was whirling through the air, so swiftly that all she could see or feel was the wind whistling past her ears.

The Silver Shoes took but three steps, and then she stopped so suddenly that she rolled over upon the grass several times before she knew where she was.

At length, however, she sat up and looked about her.

"Good gracious!" she cried.

For she was sitting on the broad Kansas prairie, and just before her was the new farmhouse Uncle Henry built after the cyclone had carried away the old one. Uncle Henry was milking the cows in the barnyard, and Toto had jumped out of her arms and was running toward the barn, barking furiously.

Dorothy stood up and found she was in her stocking-feet. For the Silver Shoes had fallen off in her flight through the air and were lost forever in the desert. Note: As the silver shoes were lost in flight  there is no way that she can return to Oz this way—but there are many ways to get to Oz! There is also a fantastic indie comic called The Royal Historian of Oz by Tommy Kovak and Andy Hirsch which is based on the idea of what would happen if the silver shoes were ever found. This is a great adventure with so many Oz references from all fourteen of the books that it is a joy to read. 

Aunt Em had just come out of the house to water the cabbages when she looked up and saw Dorothy running toward her.

"My darling child!" she cried, folding the little girl in her arms and covering her face with kisses. "Where in the world did you come from?"

"From the Land of Oz," said Dorothy gravely. "And here is Toto, too. And oh, Aunt Em! I'm so glad to be at home again!"

There’s no place like home! This book is always home to me—it is my first love. The first book that really inspired me and fired up my imagination. All of my first stories were re-tellings of Oz with me as the heroine and whichever characters were in the book my mother was currently reading aloud to me. When we became British citizens I got a tattoo of a woodcut of Oz from the book Ozma of Oz to remind me “there’s no place like home.”  It is my source of comfort and joy. It was the perfect project to work on during lockdown and I needed the comfort of Oz to see me through. Thank you to L Frank Baum for such wonderful stories. Thank you to my Mum for introducing me to the world of Oz. Thank you to my beloved Amazing Spiderman who feeds my habit of Oz memorabilia. And thank all of you for coming on this magical journey with me.  

Saying Goodbye --Oz pages 57-58

Hello lovelies! Today is the penultimate illustration in my altered book of Oz. can you believe it? Today we look at saying goodbye and how Dorothy got home. It is bittersweet both in her staying goodbye to beings she has loved and that we are nearing the end of the book. But don’t get too tearful. In the film they gaslight Dorothy into thinking it was all a dream but in the book it was real and Dorothy goes back many times to Oz in her lifetime. This is not goodbye forever.

Here are the pages side by side:

"The Silver Shoes," said the Good Witch, "have wonderful powers. And one of the most curious things about them is that they can carry you to any place in the world in three steps, and each step will be made in the wink of an eye. All you have to do is to knock the heels together three times and command the shoes to carry you wherever you wish to go."

"If that is so," said the child joyfully, "I will ask them to carry me back to Kansas at once."

This is my second picture. I used the words  knock your heels together three times (the film says tap instead of knock) and had Glinda tapping her feet with the magic ruby wand from her bosom. Even though textually this comes first, her actually leaving comes after the goodbyes so I felt it was acceptable to have this on the right page.

She threw her arms around the Lion's neck and kissed him, patting his big head tenderly. Then she kissed the Tin Woodman, who was weeping in a way most dangerous to his joints. But she hugged the soft, stuffed body of the Scarecrow in her arms instead of kissing his painted face, and found she was crying herself at this sorrowful parting from her loving comrades.

You can’t really tell but the Lion and the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow’s words all have a colour wash with an appropriate colour for them—orange, silver and blue, respectively. I coloured the background with gold paint mixed with pink streaks then added four glitter hearts—one for each of our friends.  

Glinda the Good stepped down from her ruby throne to give the little girl a good-bye kiss, and Dorothy thanked her for all the kindness she had shown to her friends and herself.

Dorothy now took Toto up solemnly in her arms, and having said one last good-bye she clapped the heels of her shoes together three times, saying:

"Take me home to Aunt Em!"

I am getting quite emotional at this point, so I will leave it here. Tomorrow we see her flight home back to Kansas and the book will be finished.

Ruler, Ruler, Ruler, Home--Oz pages 55-56

 Hello lovelies! Our story is nearing the end! Glinda the Good is here to help everyone achieve their dreams. This is a mostly wordy illustration in that I wanted to illustrate what each of our Fab Four wants to do after Dorothy goes back to Kansas. I used the harlequin style of painting again. I like this because it is like the Ozian version of Duck, Duck, Goose--three will go off to be rulers of their respective countries, and Dorothy goes home. But don't worry about Oz being so male dominated--in the next book the rightful ruler of named Ozma ascends to the throne. 

Before they went to see Glinda, however, they were taken to a room of the Castle, where Dorothy washed her face and combed her hair, and the Lion shook the dust out of his mane, and the Scarecrow patted himself into his best shape, and the Woodman polished his tin and oiled his joints.

When they were all quite presentable, they followed the soldier girl into a big room where the Witch Glinda sat upon a throne of rubies.

She was both beautiful and young to their eyes. Her hair was a rich red in colour and fell in flowing ringlets over her shoulders. Her dress was pure white, but her eyes were blue, and they looked kindly upon the little girl.

"What can I do for you, my child?" she asked.

Dorothy told the Witch all her story: how the cyclone had brought her to the Land of Oz, how she had found her companions, and of the wonderful adventures they had met with.

Note: Later Oz books by Baum have Glinda use the Great Book of Record where everything that happens in Oz in recorded in her book and she can see at a glance what is happening in the furthest corner of the country. This would have been really handy here and could have saved Dorothy all that trouble!

"My greatest wish now," she added, "is to get back to Kansas, for Aunt Em will surely think something dreadful has happened to me, and that will make her put on mourning; and unless the crops are better this year than they were last, I am sure Uncle Henry cannot afford it."

Glinda leaned forward and kissed the sweet, upturned face of the loving little girl.

"Bless your dear heart," she said, "I am sure I can tell you of a way to get back to Kansas." Then she added, "But, if I do, you must give me the Golden Cap." Note: I hope she doesn't mean in the southern way, but she is the good witch of the south after all so maybe she does. 

"Willingly!" exclaimed Dorothy; "indeed, it is of no use to me now, and when you have it you can command the Winged Monkeys three times."

"And I think I shall need their service just those three times," answered Glinda, smiling.

Dorothy then gave her the Golden Cap, and the Witch said to the Scarecrow, "What will you do when Dorothy has left us?"

"I will return to the Emerald City," he replied, "for Oz has made me its ruler and the people like me. The only thing that worries me is how to cross the hill of the Hammer-Heads."

"By means of the Golden Cap I shall command the Winged Monkeys to carry you to the gates of the Emerald City," said Glinda, "for it would be a shame to deprive the people of so wonderful a ruler."

"Am I really wonderful?" asked the Scarecrow.

"You are unusual," replied Glinda.

Turning to the Tin Woodman, she asked, "What will become of you when Dorothy leaves this country?"

He leaned on his axe and thought a moment. Then he said, "The Winkies were very kind to me, and wanted me to rule over them after the Wicked Witch died. I am fond of the Winkies, and if I could get back again to the Country of the West, I should like nothing better than to rule over them forever."

"My second command to the Winged Monkeys," said Glinda "will be that they carry you safely to the land of the Winkies. Your brain may not be so large to look at as those of the Scarecrow, but you are really brighter than he is--when you are well polished--and I am sure you will rule the Winkies wisely and well."

This is my first page. As the Scarecrow wants to go back to the Emerald City and the Tin Woodman wants to go back to the country of the Winkies, I have painted their triangles green and yellow respectively. In some illustrations the Scarecrow is pictured wearing a gold crown until Ozma becomes the rightful ruler of Oz and he steps down, so I have given him a gold jewelled crown. The Tin Woodman was given  a silver oil-can, inlaid with gold and set with precious jewels so I made him a silver jewelled oil-can. You can't tell the Scarecrow's words and washed with iridescent blue and the Tin Woodman's with silver.  

Then the Witch looked at the big, shaggy Lion and asked, "When Dorothy has returned to her own home, what will become of you?"

"Over the hill of the Hammer-Heads," he answered, "lies a grand old forest, and all the beasts that live there have made me their King. If I could only get back to this forest, I would pass my life very happily there."

"My third command to the Winged Monkeys," said Glinda, "shall be to carry you to your forest. Then, having used up the powers of the Golden Cap, I shall give it to the King of the Monkeys, that he and his band may thereafter be free for evermore."

The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman and the Lion now thanked the Good Witch earnestly for her kindness; and Dorothy exclaimed:

"You are certainly as good as you are beautiful! But you have not yet told me how to get back to Kansas."

"Your Silver Shoes will carry you over the desert," replied Glinda. "If you had known their power you could have gone back to your Aunt Em the very first day you came to this country."

This is my second illustration. I made the Lion’s triangle red because his forest in in Quadling country and Dorothy’s a sort of sepia to represent Kansas. Since the Lion will be king of the beasts, I made him a crown that looks like it was carved out of a tree since he will live in a forest and I gave Dorothy one of her silver shoes. The Lion's words are iridescent orange and Dorothy's are a wash or brown. 

 Note: This quote about "If you had known their power you could have gone back to your Aunt Em the very first day you came to this country" works in the book because she has never met Glinda before. Remember in the book it is a whole different witch who meets her when she first arrives in Oz. In the film Glinda says the same thing, but it makes her come across as a “psycho glitter bitch” for making Dorothy go through all that. The film tries to fob Dorothy off with the line “If I had told you, you wouldn’t have believed me” which always made me mad. Why wouldn’t she believe you?  You need two witches to pull this off. 

"But then I should not have had my wonderful brains!" cried the Scarecrow. "I might have passed my whole life in the farmer's cornfield."

"And I should not have had my lovely heart," said the Tin Woodman. "I might have stood and rusted in the forest till the end of the world."

"And I should have lived a coward forever," declared the Lion, "and no beast in all the forest would have had a good word to say to me."

"This is all true," said Dorothy, "and I am glad I was of use to these good friends. But now that each of them has had what he most desired, and each is happy in having a kingdom to rule besides, I think I should like to go back to Kansas."

Stay tuned tomorrow as Dorothy says goodbye to her companions.

 

Quadling Country and the Dastardly Hammerheads--Oz pages 53-54

Hello lovelies! Well you are in for a treat today! Oz is full of so many interesting characters and these are one of my favourites. Today our band of friends enter Quadling country. Now, if I haven’t explained before there are 4 major countries in Oz—Munchkin Country (blue), Winkie country (yellow), Gillikin country (purple) and Quadling (red) with the Emerald City in the middle. If you really want to get to be a top level geek like me, then read this interesting article about Oz and the countries of Oz and the map that reverses east and west--the Land of Oz. 

Here we meet the Hammerheads who are a bit like a scary clown crossed with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum in the original illustrations. Take it away, Mister Baum:

The four travellers passed through the rest of the forest in safety, and when they came out from its gloom saw before them a steep hill, covered from top to bottom with great pieces of rock.

"That will be a hard climb," said the Scarecrow, "but we must get over the hill, nevertheless."

So he led the way and the others followed. They had nearly reached the first rock when they heard a rough voice cry out, "Keep back!"

"Who are you?" asked the Scarecrow.

Then a head showed itself over the rock and the same voice said, "This hill belongs to us, and we don't allow anyone to cross it."

Here is my first illustration. I based my Hammerhead on the original illustrations by WW Denslow. It took me several days to make this illustration because I knew I wanted to make a sproingy neck that went out like a spring. I knew there was a way to do it, but I had to find a tutorial to help me. If you want to make a paper spring check out this website: {Paper Spring}

Here is a view from the side:

"But we must cross it," said the Scarecrow. "We're going to the country of the Quadlings."

"But you shall not!" replied the voice, and there stepped from behind the rock the strangest man the travellers had ever seen.

He was quite short and stout and had a big head, which was flat at the top and supported by a thick neck full of wrinkles. But he had no arms at all, and, seeing this, the Scarecrow did not fear that so helpless a creature could prevent them from climbing the hill. So he said, "I'm sorry not to do as you wish, but we must pass over your hill whether you like it or not," and he walked boldly forward.

As quick as lightning the man's head shot forward and his neck stretched out until the top of the head, where it was flat, struck the Scarecrow in the middle and sent him tumbling, over and over, down the hill. Almost as quickly as it came the head went back to the body, and the man laughed harshly as he said, "It isn't as easy as you think!"

A chorus of boisterous laughter came from the other rocks, and Dorothy saw hundreds of the armless Hammer-Heads upon the hillside, one behind every rock.

The Lion became quite angry at the laughter caused by the Scarecrow's mishap, and giving a loud roar that echoed like thunder, he dashed up the hill.

Again a head shot swiftly out, and the great Lion went rolling down the hill as if he had been struck by a cannon ball.

Dorothy ran down and helped the Scarecrow to his feet, and the Lion came up to her, feeling rather bruised and sore, and said, "It is useless to fight people with shooting heads; no one can withstand them."

"What can we do, then?" she asked.

"Call the Winged Monkeys," suggested the Tin Woodman. "You have still the right to command them once more."

"Very well," she answered, and putting on the Golden Cap she uttered the magic words. The Monkeys were as prompt as ever, and in a few moments the entire band stood before her.

"What are your commands?" inquired the King of the Monkeys, bowing low.

"Carry us over the hill to the country of the Quadlings," answered the girl.

"It shall be done," said the King, and at once the Winged Monkeys caught the four travellers and Toto up in their arms and flew away with them. As they passed over the hill the Hammer-Heads yelled with vexation, and shot their heads high in the air, but they could not reach the Winged Monkeys, which carried Dorothy and her comrades safely over the hill and set them down in the beautiful country of the Quadlings.

"This is the last time you can summon us," said the leader to Dorothy; "so good-bye and good luck to you."

"Good-bye, and thank you very much," returned the girl; and the Monkeys rose into the air and were out of sight in a twinkling.

The country of the Quadlings seemed rich and happy. There was field upon field of ripening grain, with well-paved roads running between, and pretty rippling brooks with strong bridges across them. The fences and houses and bridges were all painted bright red, just as they had been painted yellow in the country of the Winkies and blue in the country of the Munchkins. The Quadlings themselves, who were short and fat and looked chubby and good-natured, were dressed all in red, which showed bright against the green grass and the yellowing grain.

The Monkeys had set them down near a farmhouse, and the four travellers walked up to it and knocked at the door. It was opened by the farmer's wife, and when Dorothy asked for something to eat the woman gave them all a good dinner, with three kinds of cake and four kinds of cookies, and a bowl of milk for Toto.

"How far is it to the Castle of Glinda?" asked the child.

"It is not a great way," answered the farmer's wife. "Take the road to the South and you will soon reach it."

My next illustration is the Castle of Glinda. I used the same model that I used for the Emerald City and the Wicked Witch’s castle with a hill and a castle on top. Because everything in Quadling country is red I made the castle red with my glitter card, but also put in a lot of pink as a nod to the film where Billie Burke wore that huge puffy pink dress. Glinda is very beautiful and feminine and ample (I already told you about her keeping her wand in her bosom) so I made it with lots of hearts.

Thanking the good woman, they started afresh and walked by the fields and across the pretty bridges until they saw before them a very beautiful Castle. Before the gates were three young girls, dressed in handsome red uniforms trimmed with gold braid; and as Dorothy approached, one of them said to her:

"Why have you come to the South Country?"

"To see the Good Witch who rules here," she answered. "Will you take me to her?"

"Let me have your name, and I will ask Glinda if she will receive you." They told who they were, and the girl soldier went into the Castle. After a few moments she came back to say that Dorothy and the others were to be admitted at once. 

The next page we will meet Glinda and see where all the companions will go when Dorothy returns to Kansas. 

The Lion Defeats the Giant Spider--Oz pages 51-52

Hello lovelies! Here comes another part of Oz that you will have never heard of if you only know the film. The film gives the Lion an extra solo (If I Were the King of the Forest) with those ridiculous trills. That song is a very low point in the film for me. But here they make him actual king of the forest by having him fight and kill a giant spider. Yup, you read that right.

After climbing down from the china wall the travellers found themselves in a disagreeable country, full of bogs and marshes and covered with tall, rank grass. It was difficult to walk without falling into muddy holes, for the grass was so thick that it hid them from sight. However, by carefully picking their way, they got safely along until they reached solid ground. But here the country seemed wilder than ever, and after a long and tiresome walk through the underbrush they entered another forest, where the trees were bigger and older than any they had ever seen.

"This forest is perfectly delightful," declared the Lion, looking around him with joy. "Never have I seen a more beautiful place."

"It seems gloomy," said the Scarecrow.

"Not a bit of it," answered the Lion. "I should like to live here all my life. See how soft the dried leaves are under your feet and how rich and green the moss is that clings to these old trees. Surely no wild beast could wish a pleasanter home."

"Perhaps there are wild beasts in the forest now," said Dorothy.

"I suppose there are," returned the Lion, "but I do not see any of them about."

They walked through the forest until it became too dark to go any farther. Dorothy and Toto and the Lion lay down to sleep, while the Woodman and the Scarecrow kept watch over them as usual.

When morning came, they started again. Before they had gone far they heard a low rumble, as of the growling of many wild animals. Toto whimpered a little, but none of the others was frightened, and they kept along the well-trodden path until they came to an opening in the wood, in which were gathered hundreds of beasts of every variety. There were tigers and elephants and bears and wolves and foxes and all the others in the natural history, and for a moment Dorothy was afraid. But the Lion explained that the animals were holding a meeting, and he judged by their snarling and growling that they were in great trouble. Note: Interesting selection of wild animals, Mister Baum!

As he spoke several of the beasts caught sight of him, and at once the great assemblage hushed as if by magic. The biggest of the tigers came up to the Lion and bowed, saying:

"Welcome, O King of Beasts! You have come in good time to fight our enemy and bring peace to all the animals of the forest once more."

"What is your trouble?" asked the Lion quietly.

"We are all threatened," answered the tiger, "by a fierce enemy which has lately come into this forest. It is a most tremendous monster, like a great spider, with a body as big as an elephant and legs as long as a tree trunk. It has eight of these long legs, and as the monster crawls through the forest he seizes an animal with a leg and drags it to his mouth, where he eats it as a spider does a fly. Not one of us is safe while this fierce creature is alive, and we had called a meeting to decide how to take care of ourselves when you came among us."

The Lion thought for a moment.

"Are there any other lions in this forest?" he asked.

"No; there were some, but the monster has eaten them all. And, besides, they were none of them nearly so large and brave as you."

"If I put an end to your enemy, will you bow down to me and obey me as King of the Forest?" inquired the Lion.

"We will do that gladly," returned the tiger; and all the other beasts roared with a mighty roar: "We will!"

"Where is this great spider of yours now?" asked the Lion.

"Yonder, among the oak trees," said the tiger, pointing with his forefoot.

"Take good care of these friends of mine," said the Lion, "and I will go at once to fight the monster."

He bade his comrades good-bye and marched proudly away to do battle with the enemy.

This is my illustration. I found this cool animal print tissue paper at Poundland and thought it would be perfect for the backdrop for a variety of wild animals in the great forest. I carefully cut into the right shapes and then promptly ran out of gluestick and so had to wait until today to finish. Most of the book is stuck together with PVA glue (Elmer's glue to my American peeps) but liquid glue is to wet for tissue paper and so i used gluestick.  I made the giant spider by printing a picture of a tarantula and then giving it a longer slim neck and making a head on it with a row of sharp teeth a foot long. I also used jewels for eyes to make them look like they glittered in the dark.

The great spider was lying asleep when the Lion found him, and it looked so ugly that its foe turned up his nose in disgust. Its legs were quite as long as the tiger had said, and its body covered with coarse black hair. It had a great mouth, with a row of sharp teeth a foot long; but its head was joined to the pudgy body by a neck as slender as a wasp's waist. This gave the Lion a hint of the best way to attack the creature, and as he knew it was easier to fight it asleep than awake, he gave a great spring and landed directly upon the monster's back. Then, with one blow of his heavy paw, all armed with sharp claws, he knocked the spider's head from its body. Jumping down, he watched it until the long legs stopped wiggling, when he knew it was quite dead.

The Lion went back to the opening where the beasts of the forest were waiting for him and said proudly:

"You need fear your enemy no longer."

Then the beasts bowed down to the Lion as their King, and he promised to come back and rule over them as soon as Dorothy was safely on her way to Kansas.

I made the second illustration a pocket story as the tale of the giant spider and its unusual description were worth reading.

Stay tuned for the Hammerheads!