The Wonder City of Oz

The Wonder City of Oz (1940) is the thirty-fourth in the series of Oz books created by L. Frank Baum and his successors, and the first written and illustrated solely by John R. Neill.

With The Wonder City of Oz, Neill introduced a change in tone that continued through his subsequent books. Neill's Emerald City has skyscrapers and gas stations. Normally inanimate objects act alive: houses talk and fight, shoes sing (they have tongues), and clocks run. Jenny Jump captures a leprechaun named Siko Pompus (apparently a pun on "psychopomp") and forces him to make her into a fairy; but he only does half the job before escaping. Jenny then jumps to Oz using her half-fairy gifts. She lands in the carriage of Princess Ozma during a parade - and quickly expresses her desire to be a queen herself. Her ambition lures her into running against Ozma in an Ozlection to become ruler of the Land of Oz.