The Sea Fairies

L. Frank Baum and John R. Neill's fantasy book The Sea Fairies is for young readers. A little child named Mayre Griffiths, also known as Trot, resides on the southern Californian coast. Cap'n Bill Weedles, a former sailor with a wooden leg, is her regular friend and her father is the skipper of a sailing schooner. Trot expresses a desire to see a mermaid one day, and the next day, her dream is accomplished after being overheard. One of the very few completely unredeemable, pure-evil characters in Baum's novels, Zog the Magician is one of the monsters Trot and Cap'n Bill face. He is a grotesque hybrid of a man, an animal, and a fish. They see incredible sights in the kingdom of Queen Aquarine and King Anko, including an embarrassed octopus who discovers he is the emblem of the Standard Oil Company. The two main characters learn that many sailors who were believed to have drowned were really seized and sold into slavery by Zog. The dominant characters in Oz Baum's Oz and his fantasy tales, in particular, are strong, morally upright women; the stereotype of the father figure is barely present. This general pattern is broken only by The Sea Fairies, who describe King Anko, a sea serpent, as being the closest thing to a strong, loving father figure.