The Glass Road to Oz

Years have passed since a girl from Kansas melted a witch with a bucket of water and rode a hot air balloon toward home (only to be left behind when it launched without her, and to find her own way back through Glinda's magic). Oz has settled into a fragile peace: the Scarecrow rules the Emerald City with a mind full of straw and sense, the Tin Woodman governs the Winkies with a heart he is still learning how to use, and the Lion presides over the beasts of the western forest. But peace, like the Yellow Brick Road, has a way of cracking underfoot.

In a village at the edge of the Quadling Country, a glassblower's apprentice named Wren Thistledown discovers that the roads themselves are going silent, whole stretches of golden brick turning gray and cold, as though something is drinking the magic out of the ground. When the failing road strands a company of porcelain travelers from the China Country far from home, Wren sets out to find the cause, and is joined by an unlikely trio: a scarecrow-made messenger bird with a single silver word stitched into its wing, a retired soldier of the Emerald City guard who has forgotten why he stopped fighting, and a small, stubborn dog with a bell instead of a bark.

Their search leads them past the ruins of the Wicked Witch's castle, into the Quadling marshes, and finally to a forgotten corner of Oz where an old grief has been quietly building something it should not. The Glass Road to Oz is a story about what gets left behind when adventures end, about roads that remember every foot that ever walked them, and about the quiet, stubborn work of repair. It stands on its own, but readers of the original tale will recognize familiar friends grown older, wiser, and not quite finished changing.

For readers of classic Oz who want to walk the road a little further.