The Wonderful Wizard of Oz cap to summon the Winged Monkeys two more times. When Dorothy and her friends meet the Wizard of Oz again, Toto tips over a screen in a corner of the throne room that reveals the Wizard. He sadly explains he is a humbug—an ordinary old man who, by a hot air balloon, came to Oz long ago from Omaha. The Wizard provides the Scarecrow with a head full of bran, pins, and needles ("a lot of bran-new brains"), the Tin Woodman with a silk heart stuffed with sawdust, and the Cowardly Lion a potion of "courage". Their faith in the
Ozma of Oz – and especially to the Dorothys – this book is lovingly dedicated." It has been five years since "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" took place. Uncle Henry has been ordered by his doctor to take a vacation from the stress and labor of having to replace the Kansas farmhouse due to the first one being swept away in a cyclone. He is accompanied by his adolescent niece, Dorothy Gale (this is the first of the Oz books in which the reader learns her last name), while aboard a small steamship headed to Australia while Aunt Em and Dorothy's pet dog