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Autumn has come to Kansas. Dorothy doesn’t believe in ghosts, yet the ghostly voices of her deceased parents seem to invade her dreams – coming from a treasured photo of them, a tintype that she had lost in Oz after the tornado that summer. If all this is only a dream, she worries, maybe Oz was, too.

Dorothy is angry. Many things anger her. She would like to go back to Oz and find the picture and so prove to herself that Oz does exist, yet there is no way to return. She is being teased by kids at school after foolishly telling them about Oz. She is increasingly annoyed by adults treating her as “only a mere slip of a girl” – while when in Oz she had done so many amazing things. Besides, she reasons, we are entering the twentieth century and women may even get the right to vote! She is bored with nothing more than "womanly chores" to do. She wants to be treated "even-steven" with the boys, but even her friend Tim seems unable to understand.

Dorothy carves a pumpkin into a jack-o-lantern for Halloween, but there is little to do to celebrate any holiday on that isolated Kansas farm. Then, during a dream on Halloween night, her parents -- voices from inside the lost tintype -- tell her that she must return to Oz that night. They warn of mortal danger if she does not come, and instruct her how to get there.

Upon returning to Oz, Dorothy finds that Halloween there lasts an entire witch-week of thirteen days. Mysteries abound. Why does she arrive in Gillikin Land, where she has never been before? Where is the danger that the tintype warned her about? Who is this mysterious boy with purple hair, who seems to be Tim from Kansas in disguise? Where can the treasured tintype of her parents be? And how can it seem to talk to her?

With Toto along with her, Dorothy finds old friends like Scarecrow, Tin-man, and the once-Cowardly Lion. As she tries to locate the lost tintype and discover why she was called to Oz, she also recruits new friends like the mysterious boy, her Kansas pumpkin magically brought to life, a talking sawhorse named Stubs, a team of bats, a flamboyant fox, and a moose named Tippecanoe. In her quest, Dorothy and Toto confront nightmarish obstacles such as an attack by Kadrakahs, fierce fire-breathing beings alien to Oz, a rising of the living-dead from a graveyard, and a very untrustworthy Wizard in his hideout in the Gillik Alps. Ultimately, she arrives back on the Yellow Brick Road, but this time to face evil forces in what becomes a battle to save Oz.

This is an Oz book covering the further adventures of Dorothy, an orphan living with her aunt and uncle on a remote Kansas farm in 1900 -- and famous from the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Lyman Frank Baum (1856-1919), a book published in 1900.

Halloween in Oz: Dorothy Returns is a sequel to that book, and to that book alone.

Our story attempts to retain the spirit of Baum’s imagination and the fantasy land revealed in that first Oz book. To do so, this book draws lines of action and even dialog from other books by Baum, particularly The Marvellous Land of Oz, a book that he published in 1904. Other features and dialogue have been purposefully extracted from Baum's later books, for example The Road to Oz (1909).

Most importantly, this book leads the reader into a new and larger story about Oz and a mysterious and magic-ridden world called Alpimar of which Oz is a part. In the terms used in fantasy and sci-fi today, the world called Alpimar might be called an "alternative Earth," set in an "alternative dimension," where even the course of time is somewhat askew. But Dorothy uses no such scientific words in trying to understand her experience. She is, of course, a small girl living on a remote Kansas farm in the year 1900 -- the year Einstein graduated from school in Switzerland.

Baum’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was a production of those last years of the nineteenth century, copyrighted in 1899 and published in 1900. The storylines of the later Baum books that featured Dorothy in Oz often rambled through a sequence of loosely related adventures, more in the earlier style of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland than in the spirit of twentieth century fantasy series. There was little or no character development -- personal growth -- in Baum’s Oz series, while such is an important feature of most of the more recent fantasy series involving young protagonists.

Our book does not attempt to be consistent with all the later Oz books by Baum — an impossible task in fact. They contradict each other in how Oz is depicted, even in respect to its basic geography.

Nothing in Halloween in Oz: Dorothy Returns comes from any of the Oz books that were later written by other persons. Nothing is derived from any of the many stage plays, motion pictures, or television shows that have appeared using Oz themes.

Comment on the New Alpimar Series of Oz Books:

Halloween in Oz: Dorothy Returns introduces a forthcoming Alpimar series, several of which are already in manuscript form. More information on the Alpimar series will later be found on our Alpimaroz.com webpage.

In our effort to produce an Oz series for the twenty-first century, we have endeavored to make the storyline and many elements of style more in keeping with contemporary trends in the genre of fantasy. Thus our tale is more complex and more tightly consistent than the series by Baum. Halloween in Oz: Dorothy Returns has 553 pages, for example, far more than any Oz story by Baum. We have tried, however, to keep as much of the Baum spirit as possible and thus to present an expanded but still authentic view of his fantasy land to a new generation of readers.

Yet in Halloween in Oz: Dorothy Returns you will find what is in many ways an expanded view of the land of Oz, set in a whole new alternative world where magic reigns -- not science and technology. This larger world of fantasy is called Alpimar, in which Oz is a land surrounded by deadly deserts and an impassable sea. The map below will show how our Oz follows that of Baum's first Oz book, but it will reveal some new dimensions as well.

NOTE to Judy Garland fans:

As stated, nothing in Halloween in Oz: Dorothy Returns comes from any Oz-related book written by anyone other than L. Frank Baum. Nothing comes from any of the stage plays or motion pictures based on Oz themes.

This means that nothing in this book reflects anything original to the famous motion picture staring Judy Garland (1922-1969). That 1939 film differed in very significant ways from Baum’s book -- most especially by being set more than a generation later, and by making Oz nothing but a dream by Dorothy. Oz is a real place in the Baum books, and it is in ours. The Judy Garland movie also featured hired hands on Uncle Henry’s farm, and a mean old lady making trouble in Kansas. None of this was in Baum's book. Much of the original story was left out in that film as well, including the Good Witch of the North, the land of porcelain figures, et al.

Those who have only seen Oz-based movies and have never read the original book, should remember that Baum’s story was written in 1899, and was about a small orphan girl on a very poor farm, and she was considerably younger than Judy Garland was in the film. Our Dorothy is a blonde, like Baum’s, and she was actually carried to the marvelous land of Oz by a tornado, and while there, she vanquished two cruel witches with the help of a scarecrow, a tin man, and a cowardly lion. And she returned home with the help of a pair of magical silver shoes (not ruby slippers).

The first part of our book sets the stage for Dorothy’s Halloween adventure. It will remind Judy Garland fans of what was and was not in the original story as written by Baum. It also provides additional background consistent with that book, but now part of our new Alpimar series. Significantly, our story tells where and how Dorothy Gale became an orphan -- later we even learn why -- but you must read our story to begin unraveling the mysteries behind these facts.

NOTE to Harry Potter fans:

While Baum’s Oz books remained among the most popular children’s books during much of the twentieth century, many new fantasy series appeared with similar features. Several of the authors of these series acknowledged the influence of the Oz books on their work, and yet the newer series tended to be more complex, more inwardly consistent, and with plots that were far more sharply focused.

The Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling, which crossed into the twenty-first century, is a major example of this. The Harry Potter books had followed an evolving tradition of twentieth century books that created new magical worlds -- marked by the works of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis.

Many features of the Harry Potter series are similar to the Baum’s Oz series. Both tell the story of a pre-teen orphan. In both stories, the child is being raised by a humdrum aunt and uncle. Both stories center on that child’s escape into an alternative magical world. In that new world, dangerous tasks are required of the child -- things that the adults of that world seem unable to do. Both stories feature witches who may be either good or bad. Dorothy has her black dog Toto; Harry Potter has his snowy owl, Hedwig. Both series have forbidding forests, magical mirrors, and fighting trees with branches that hit and grasp. Both series have animals that can speak and others that cannot.

There are evil forces in both storylines -- and these take the form of persons highly adept in magic -- and it is the child protagonist who is uniquely endowed to destroy them.

Major differences between the Baum and Rowling stories include the fact that Baum never explains how Dorothy was orphaned, while the way in which Harry lost his parents was key to the entire Harry Potter series. The environment differs, Dorothy ranges over the countryside of a magical land, while much of the Potter series was set in a school for wizards and witches -- a fantasy equivalent of Tom Brown's School Days (1857) by Thomas Hughes.

The fuller elaboration of plotting in the Harry Potter books was typical of most of the serial fantasy books of this type written during the twentieth century. Halloween in Oz: Dorothy Returns does to that extent attempt to follow contemporary styles, rather than that of Baum’s Oz series.

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Further Comment on the Alpimar Series:

Oz has become a unique part of world folklore over the last hundred years, and it should remain that in the years to come. During the same period, the Halloween holiday has been a growing and evolving cultural tradition as well, worldwide. Halloween in Oz: Dorothy Returns unites those two traditions. Yet this book is not intended as simply a Halloween book, it is an introduction to a new series that will take us forward and backward in time to reveal more of the how and why of Dorothy's amazing adventures.

Alpimar Books is an imprint of Whitfield & Dodd Publications. The Editor of Whitfield & Dodd Publications is Ann E. LeBlanc. The Director of Alpimar Books is Carol Marie Nelson.

More about Alpimar's Oz series will be found in an appendix to Halloween in Oz: Dorothy Returns -- one written in Ozian runes. What are Ozian runes? You'll have to ask Arcanix, the Minister of Secrets in Winkie Land.

But this is a table similar to the one that Arcanix gave Dorothy.

Come with us to Oz and begin your thirteen days of Halloween:

Find out how Dorothy came to live in Kansas, leaving her home amid the green hills of Kentucky.

Meet some of the boys who think she is the prettiest girl in school.

Learn why her house was carried off by a tornado, and why it landed where it did.

Help Dorothy search for the only remaining picture of her parents.

Sympathize with Toto, turned into a black cat by a witch named Salmanta.

Rejoin Scarecrow, who is plagued by the burdensome crown of the Kings of the Emerald City.

March with a teenage Army of Revolt, with spicy gingerbread girls in the ranks.

Fly with Dorothy on a wicked one-eyed broomstick named Beladona.

Flee from the alien Kadrakahs, fire-breathing monsters who read minds.

Survive an attack when the living-dead rise from a graveyard.

Hunt for an illusive Munchkin warlock in the Gillik Alps.

Meet Reynard, the narcissist Prince of the Foxes.

Mobilize the forest animals to fight a battle to save Munchkin Land.

Confront the ghost of the Wicked Witch of the East.

Find a long-lost Princess.

Realize that while much has been revealed, mysteries still abound in Oz.

Links:

Alpimar Books: forthcoming

MySpace URL: http://www.myspace.com/halloweeninoz

Whitfield & Dodd Publications: forthcoming

A book review can be found at : http://blogcritics.org/archives/2008/01/01/151036.php