Tik-Tok of Oz

Tik-Tok of Oz is a fantasy novel for children by the American writer L. Frank Baum, published in 1914. It is the eighth book in the series that began with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

The book opens with a shipwreck. Betsy Bobbin and her mule, Hank, are cast up on the coast of Oz, and they quickly meet an expedition heading inland: Ann Soforth, the Queen of Oogaboo, has raised an army and set out to conquer the Nome King. Her most useful follower is Tik-Tok, a man made of clockwork who is wound up to think, to speak and to act, and who is as reliable as his springs are. The journey takes the party through the strange kingdoms and peoples that Baum invented for the series, where the obstacles are usually puzzles or conventions rather than battles, and where a talking animal is as likely to settle an argument as any of the humans.

Baum wrote the Oz books as an American fairyland at a time when most children's fantasy came from Europe, and this instalment brings together several of the characters he had introduced in earlier volumes.