John Rea Neill (1877–1943)
Autore di The Wonder City of Oz
Sull'Autore
Fonte dell'immagine: John Rea Neill
Serie
Opere di John Rea Neill
Rab And His Friends 1 copia
Opere correlate
The Tin Woodman of Oz (1918) — Illustratore, alcune edizioni; Illustratore, alcune edizioni — 1,225 copie
Wicked: The Grimmerie, a Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Hit Broadway Musical (2005) — Illustratore — 919 copie
King Arthur and His Knights: A Noble and Joyous History (Windermere Series) (1924) — Illustratore; Illustratore — 133 copie
A Wonderful Welcome to Oz: Marvelous Land of Oz, Ozma of Oz & The Emerald City of Oz (2006) — Illustratore — 75 copie
Forgotten Fantasy - Sunday Comics, 1900-1915: Visions from Lyonel Feininger, Winsor McCay and Many More (Giants of the… (2005) — Illustratore, alcune edizioni — 9 copie
The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman of Oz; Also Princess Ozma of Oz (1933) — Illustratore, alcune edizioni — 7 copie
Cricket Magazine, Vol. 3, No. 10, June 1976 — Illustratore — 3 copie
Загублена принцеса Країни Оз. Історії маленького Чарівника… — Illustratore, alcune edizioni — 1 copia
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Data di nascita
- 1877-11-12
- Data di morte
- 1943-09-19
- Sesso
- male
- Nazionalità
- USA
- Luogo di nascita
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
- Attività lavorative
- illustrator
Utenti
Recensioni
Liste
Potrebbero anche piacerti
Autori correlati
Statistiche
- Opere
- 30
- Opere correlate
- 60
- Utenti
- 231
- Popolarità
- #97,643
- Voto
- 3.8
- Recensioni
- 6
- ISBN
- 28
In some ways, this is probably the best of John R. Neill's four Oz books. In a comment on the late, lamented Tor.com, editor Eric Shanower says one of the things he did was "[t]ake out whatever made no sense"—in a John R. Neill book this could, of course, be quite a lot, and Runaway certainly has a cohesion lacking in, say, Wonder City or Scalawagons of Oz. It has two clear, parallel plots in the classic Baum/Thompson fashion, one about Scraps running away from the Emerald City and one about Jenny Jump, Jack Pumpkinhead, and the Wogglebug trying to find her. Yet it still has that John R. Neill fancifulness, with details such as the Wogglebug literally creating a castle in the air while he dreams—one he intends to use to take a vacation!
The best part of the book is probably the beginning, where Scraps antagonizes in turn Jellia Jamb, the Tin Woodman, and Jenny Jump. Convinced everyone is "mean" for simply telling her to behave herself, she resolves to run away. It's a very child-like, very accurate response, and it led to some good moments with my five-year-old, who likes to declare that I am mean whenever I enforce a rule or boundary, no matter how gently I do it. Were Jellia or Jenny being mean to Scraps, I asked? No, he declared. Hmmmm... Will this lesson sink in? Well, I am less sure about that.
You might think, then, that the book would end with Scraps learning to accept some responsibility for her actions, but this only kind of happens. There is a great scene where Scraps returns to the Emerald City, seemingly in prisoners' garb (a sheet, in a callback to Patchwork Girl), but I feel like an author who was not John R. Neill could have pulled things together a bit more strongly. I do like the somewhat Ozzy moral that sometimes it's right to run away, but it does seem to me that Scraps largely gets away without actually learning anything even if she does inadvertently face some consequences.
So the book was lively and focused, but not always totally successful at what it seemed like it was doing, if that makes sense. And while it certainly had a coherence lacking in Wonder City, Wonder City was so manic it almost gets away with its many faults, which isn't quite the case here.
Eric Shanower illustrates, and it's certainly a beautiful edition. Shanower's character designs are clearly influenced by Neill's, but he has a somewhat different style, with a tightness of line that makes the weirdness of what he's drawing seem more real. This being a Neill novel, there's a lot of fanciful imagery, and Shanower does a great job with it; probably my favorite was the army of quinces! The flat people were also pretty great.
I could also detect (so I believe) a bit of fannishness in Shanower's editing. This is the first book to get east and west right since Ruth Plumly Thompson took over, and there's an extended passage of exposition reversing Jenny Jump's "lobotomy" from Wonder City. Actually, I very much enjoyed Shanower's Jenny, particularly all her costume and hairstyle changes. It's a shame Neill's work is still under copyright, because that means Jenny (and Number Nine) haven't been available to other authors, and they're strong characters I'd like to see in other Oz stories. I also like the continuing friendship between Scraps and Jack Pumpkinhead.
Things my son really did not like: the stressful sequence where the air castle disintegrates, Scraps being turned all black by the quinces. But on the whole, he reported enjoying this one. Both of us like the Patchwork Girl a lot, so perhaps we were destined to! Even the three-year-old is into her; whenever we read a chapter at bedtime, he would point to the cover and declare, "Scraps is rainbow. Scraps is rainbow!" A couple weeks later, I asked him if he remembered what color Scraps was and he said "Scraps is rainbow... but she turned black!" So the books are starting to sink in for him as well.… (altro)