This small collection of three stories, "Order of the Wicked", “Dark Side of the Rainbow" and “The Queen of Oz", give some much needed backstory for three very important characters in the novels: Lanadel, Polychrome, the Rainbow Princess, and Pete (who is a disguised Ozma).  As standalone novellas, they are moderately interesting.  But, as backstory after you've already read the novels, I think they are much more fun. 

The three stories are there to flesh-out the backstory for each of the three.  We first met Lanadel in Ev during book 4, then known as Langwidere but in this story she is a scared but angry young girl looking to revenge the horrible deaths of her family at the hands of Dorothy's army but is hiding a deeper horror.  She is taken in by the Order of the Wicked and trained by Mombi and Nox for a desperate spy gambit against the Nome King. Now we know how she got to Ev.

The second story focuses on Polychrome whom we first met in the novel "The Wicked Will Rise" but we see a bit more backstory before Rainbow Falls was destroyed by Glinda.

The third story may have been framed to give us backstory on Pete but in reality, we learned much more about Mombi's past and how she came to hide Ozma.  This story finally told me a little about when Glinda started to become evil but not enough to explain why.  Glinda was, ultimately, responsible for everything bad that happened in Oz; absolutely everything could be traced to her.

This last collection was the most disappointing; aside from Mombi's backstory, there wasn't anything particularly notable.  I was hoping for a backstory of Glinda's and Glamora's childhood to explain their personalities.  There wasn't as much blood and horror this time but there was a singular reference to sex; I think there was a comment about Dorothy sleeping with the pool boys but I don't remember it exactly.  So, again, not recommended for middle schoolers. ~~  Catherine Book

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