Sky Island, L. Frank Baum
Sky Island, L. Frank Baum
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Sky Island

Author: L. Frank Baum

Narrator: Abby Craden

Unabridged: 5 hr 31 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Ascent Audio

Published: 04/09/2013


Synopsis

One day a young girl, Trot, encounters a strange young boy with a big umbrella. She learns his name is Button Bright and he uses this umbrella to go on long journeys. Trot's friend, Cap'n Bill, joins the two children and they venture to a fantastical island, which they call Sky Island, as it is halfway in the sky. The island is split into two sides - the blue side and the pink side. They arrive first at the blue side - a dangerous and hostile place. The leader of the blue side, the Boolooroo of the Blues, is an evil man who punishes people by chopping them in half and sewing mismatched pieces back together. The Boolooroo captures Trot, Button, and Cap'n Bill and gives Trot as a slave to his daughters. The three eventually escape and make their way over to the pink side of the island, a much happier but still dangerous place. The laws of Sky Island insist that the visitors be thrown off the side of the island, and even the leader cannot save them. Trot, Button, and Cap'n Bill seem to be in an inescapable place of danger and they will need someone or something very powerful to save them from Sky Island.
L. Frank Baum (1856-1919) was an American author of children's books, most famous for his "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz." "Sky Island" is a sequel to Baum's "The Sea Fairies," a children's fantasy novel concerning the adventures of Trot and Cap'n Bill.

About L. Frank Baum

L. Frank Baum was born in 1856 in Chittenango, New York, to oil magnate Benjamin Ward Baum and Cynthia (Stanton) Baum, a women's rights activist. He was privately tutored at home and spent two years at Peekskill Military Academy.

In 1873, Baum became a reporter for the New York World. Two years later, he founded the New Era weekly in Pennsylvania. He also worked as a poultry farmer with B. W. Baum and Son and edited the Poultry Record and wrote columns for New York Farmer and Dairyman. In New York, Baum acted under the name George Brooks with May Roberts and the Sterling Comedy in plays that he had written. He owned an opera house in 1882-83 and toured with his own repertory company. In 1882 he married Maud Gage; they had four sons.

In 1883, Baum returned to Syracuse to work in the family oil business. His subsequent endeavor was not successful; his South Dakota general store, Baum's Bazaar, failed, and from 1888 to 1890, he ran the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer. Baum then moved to Chicago and tried various sales positions. In 1897, he founded the National Association of Window Trimmers and edited Show Window from 1897 to 1902.

Baum made his debut as a novelist in 1897 with Mother Goose in Prose, which was based on stories he told to his own children. Its last chapter introduced the farm girl Dorothy. In 1899, Baum published Father Goose: His Book, which quickly became a bestseller. His next work was The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the story of little Dorothy Gale from Kansas, who is transported by a twister to a magical realm. The book was published at Baum's own expense.

The first of the Oz books was made into a musical in 1901. Since its appearance, the story has been filmed many times. Other novels in the series are The Marvelous Land of Oz, Ozma of Oz, Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz , The Road to Oz, The Emerald City of Oz, The Patchwork Girl of Oz, Tik-Tok of Oz, The Scarecrow of Oz, The Lost Princess of Oz, The Tin Woodman of Oz, The Magic of Oz, Glinda of Oz, and The Visitors from Oz, which was adapted from a comic strip by Baum.

During his career, Baum wrote more than sixty books, some of them for adults, including The Last Egyptian. He also gathered material for works aimed at teenagers during his motoring tours across the country and travels in Europe and Egypt.

Born with a congenitally weak heart, Baum was ill through much of his life. He died on May 6, 1919, in Hollywood, where he lived in a house he called Ozcot.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Theodore on January 28, 2024

Surprisingly, THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ was not L. Frank Baum's favorite of his books; this one--SKY ISLAND--was. He wrote that he expected he would be most remembered for it, not for any of the Oz books. SKY ISLAND features a villain so fearsome and loathsome that he makes the Wicked Witch of the W......more

Goodreads review by Janet on October 25, 2018

A sequel to The Sea Fairies, and a much better story. Baum figured out how to write Trot - she is no longer rude, but still bold, outspoken, and honest. Button Bright shows up as well, and he is far more mature and interesting than in his early Oz appearances. The action packed plot works well, with......more

Goodreads review by Pierce on September 08, 2024

Not in Oz... Yet another great story with such charismatic characters like Trot, Cap'n Bill, and everybody's favorite Philadelphia boy, Button-Bright. Everything in this story surprised me. Even when I knew small facts about it... Like the arrival of Polychrome, and Trot coronation as [not a princess......more

Goodreads review by Cori on July 06, 2022

I'm very upset with my childhood self for thinking this book was awesome......more