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"Little Dorothy and Toto" is an Oz short story by L. Frank Baum, published in 1913. It is one of the six Little Wizard Stories of Oz.

Summary[]

In the story, Dorothy Gale and Toto are walking though a wild part of the countryside of Oz. They meet a tiny man, just three inches tall - who suddenly transforms into a giant. This giant, who calls himself Crinklink, carries Dorothy and Toto to his hilltop castle, where he forces the girl to wash heaps of dirty dishes. When Crinklink shifts into his three-inch size (he wants to sleep, and his bed is tiny), Toto attacks; and in the fray Crinklink turns into the Wizard of Oz.

The Wizard explains that he was trying to teach Dorothy a lesson, for her own good: that roaming Oz unaccompanied can be dangerous. This is a rather different and more cautious message than the Oz books generally convey, since roaming around Oz is what most of them celebrate. It shows that Baum was aiming the Little Wizard tales at very young readers.

Background[]

Since Toto didn't talk until the final chapter of Tik-Tok of Oz in 1914, the line ""Bow-wow! said Toto" caused Baum's child correspondents to point out the inconsistency in how Billina could talk when she reaches Oz but up to that point he only made dog noises. This persuaded him to give the dog lines in his later books which in turn would be replicated with the Totoshka of Magic Land.

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