Fighting for the Famous Forty

Fourteen-year-old Brenton Brookings says he’s a lot like Tik-Tok, the copper mechanical man from the Land of Oz: wind him up, and he’s sure to save the day.

These days, Brookings is wound up in bringing his favorite stories to bookstores everywhere.

Since he discovered the Oz books at age 8, the high-school freshman has read more than half of the 40-volume series, which begins with L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and ends with Merry Go Round in Oz, written in 1963 by Eloise Jarvis McGraw and Lauren McGraw Wagner. Like many Oz fans, however, Brookings was disappointed to learn that several of the “Famous Forty” Oz books are no longer in print.

When he e-mailed a publisher and suggested that the company publish a complete Oz set, he was told there wasn’t a big market for the books. Brookings knew the publisher was wrong.

“I know that I've met many people who would do anything for these books,” he said. “The answer was obvious. If a publisher could see first-hand evidence that there really are a lot of people willing to buy these books, he or she would have no reason not to publish them.”

Last summer, Brookings started the “Petition for Oz” on his web site, http://www.homestead.com/scarecrow and so far has collected about 70 “signatures” from Oz fans who would like to see the complete series in print. Some leave only their names; others write messages about why the books are so important to them.

“The original fantasy series, way before Harry Potter!” writes one fan. “Please, please publish!”

“Come on people!” writes another. “What is this? Anyone in their right mind knows that all of the Oz books should be made available from the same publisher.”

Brookings said he would like to collect even more signatures before approaching publishers. Although he hasn’t decided which companies he’ll contact, he does know exactly what he wants. All 40 books should be published in hardcover, he said, and they should reproduce the original editions' type, cover designs, and color plates.

“Books of Wonder did a beautiful job with the Baum books,” he said. “Unfortunately, their [Ruth Plumly] Thompson books aren't done so faithfully to the first editions. And then, they haven't even published most of Thompson's books.”

A future list of Oz authors could include Brookings’ name: he’s had an award-winning story and several pieces of artwork published in The Royal Club of Oz’s newsletter, The Emerald City Mirror, and he’s been writing his own Oz book since last summer. All of this is in addition to “Brenton’s Royal Website of Oz,” which he’s been working on for about two and a half years.

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