One of the most fascinating features of this young person's novel—a feature that particularly recommends the book to the serious adult reader—is Baum's creation of certain characters that at first reading seem merely additions to the fantastic cast. From this standpoint, all the others are so weird, that these get lost in the welter of Ozian oddities. The characters referred to here are Tip and the thieving Jackdaws, near whose nest "in a hollow ledge of rock" the Gump and its passengers find themselves after a mishap in landing.

All along, the reader may have surmised that there was something strange about Tip, from birth to the present in the story: a soft, unboyish quality suggesting Sir James Barrie's character Peter Pan. That is to say, a young person who seems to be set apart for a special fate, because of that person's essential...