Title: The Woggle-Bug book

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Language: English
Type: Fiction
Genre: Folk and Fairy Tales
Created by:

• L. Frank Baum (Author)

Abstract: This book contains a lengthy, scholarly introduction to the main story in this book, which is about the Woggle-Bug, who favors flashy clothes with bright colors. He falls in love with a gaudy "Wagnerian plaid" dress that he sees on a mannequin in a department store window. Being a woggle bug, he has trouble differentiating between the dress and its wearers, wax or human. The dress is on sale for $7.93 and the Bug works for two days as a ditchdigger (he earns double pay since he digs with four hands) for money to buy the dress. He arrives too late, though; the dress has been sold, and makes its way through the second-hand market. The Bug pursues his love through the town, ineptly courting the women who have the dress in turn. His pursuit eventually leads to an accidental balloon flight to Africa. There, menacing Arabs want to kill the Woggle-Bug, but he convinces them that his death would bring bad luck. In the jungle he falls in with the talking animals that are the hallmark of Baum's imaginative world. In the end, the Bug makes his way back to the city, with a necktie made from the dress's loud fabric. He wisely reconciles himself to his fate.

Publisher: Scholar's Facsimilies and Reprints
Published: 1978
Published in: United States
Contributed by: Boston Public Library

This book is in the public domain
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