The Hidden Prince of Oz The Hidden Prince of Oz The Hidden Prince of Oz is a novel written by Gina Wickwar and illustrated by Anna-Maria Cool. As its title indicates, the book is an entrant into the series of Oz books by L. Frank Baum and his many successors. The publication of the book was timed to coincide with the centennial of the original Oz book, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" (as was also true of Edward Einhorn's "Paradox in Oz" and Dave Hardenbrook's "The Unknown Witches of Oz"). It was the winner of the Club's Centennial book contest, which received over 100 entries
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz be Australia, or perhaps a magical land in the center of the great Australian desert. Another influence lay in Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". A September 1900 review in the "Grand Rapids Herald" called "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" a "veritable "Alice in Wonderland" brought up to the present day standard of juvenile literature". Baum found Carroll's plots incoherent, but he identified the books' source of popularity as Alice herself, a child with whom the child readers could identify; this influenced his choice of a protagonist. Baum was also influenced by Carroll's belief that children's books should have many