MEET THE BOYS!!!

MEET  THE  BOYS!!!

 

The Boys, as I call them, are Button-Bright and Ojo, the two heroes of my Oz stories.  Readers who never got past The Wizard of Oz probably haven’t heard of them, because the series was well underway before Baum introduced them.  But Oz fans know them and love them, and I hope you will too.

 Today I’ll tell you about Button-Bright, an American boy who made his debut in the fifth book in the series, The Road to Oz.  There are several mysteries associated with Button-Bright.  The first of these is obvious right off the bat:  he is first discovered, a barely verbal tyke of five at the most, lost and alone in the magic lands surrounding Oz.  How did he get there?  He doesn’t know and we never find out.  At the end of the book he is sent home to . . . somewhere.  It’s all strangely nebulous.

 His next appearance occurs in a Baum book called Sky Island.  Sky Island is not, strictly speaking, Oz canon, but it features several once and future Oz characters – including fellow Americans Trot and Cap’n Bill – and it is the essential source for biographical information on our hero.  An older (nine-ish?) and savvier Button-Bright explains that he’s the son of a well-to-do Philadelphia family and that he is now on a jaunt with a family heirloom that unexpectedly turned out to be magical – an umbrella that will take him anywhere he tells it to go (this is long before Mary Poppins, in case you’re wondering).  He and his Magic Umbrella are, in fact, the catalysts for the magical adventure that follows, and over the course of this adventure he proves himself much braver and more resourceful than he or anyone else might have imagined.  At the end of it, a week or so after he’s told the Magic Umbrella to take him back to Philadelphia, his friend Trot gets a post card from him.  He got home fine, he says, but the Magic Umbrella has been confiscated and locked up.

 Now we come to the second big Button-Bright mystery, which is worth a few quotations.  He is next found, again by his old friends Trot and Cap’n Bill, aimlessly wandering the magic lands in The Scarecrow of Oz.  Trot says, “His home used to be in Philadelphia; but I’m quite sure Button-Bright doesn’t belong anywhere.”  Button-Bright agrees, adding, “I’m halfway round the world from Philadelphia, and I’ve lost my Magic Umbrella, that used to carry me anywhere.  Stands to reason that if I can’t get back home I haven’t any home.  But I don’t care much.  This is a pretty good country, Trot.  I’ve had lots of fun here.”

 And that is the last we hear about Button-Bright’s erstwhile home.  At the end of the book he comes to live in the Emerald City, abandoning his old life forever.  What has made this possible?  What is it in Philadelphia that he has let go of so easily?  Why does he seem so completely comfortable with his apparent homelessness?  Again, we never find out the answers.

 For Baum the storyteller, I suspect that it was a purely practical matter.  He’d already brought one American child to live in Oz; and since that famous girl’s Aunt Em and Uncle Henry were too well-known to be left behind, they were brought along as well.  But that was a one-shot deal.  Future American imports would leave their families behind, and if this couldn’t be done sensibly, it would be done in as few words as possible.  “I haven’t any home,” says Button-Bright, summarily disposing of an inconvenient biography.  End of discussion – as far as Baum was concerned.

 

Button-Bright continues to live a happy life in Oz, one in which he becomes famous for one thing:  getting lost.  But some of us can’t seem to leave it at that.  The mystery of Button-Bright is irresistible.  What was the story with his family?  And why does he still get lost?  If you read my stories, you’ll find my own answers to these questions – and others that Baum never thought to ask.