The Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow are visited by a young boy named Woot who learns that the Tin Woodman was once a man who loved a young girl of Oz. Inspired, the three of them set off to find the girl.

This novel, the 12th in the Oz series, provides backstory for the original novel and reversed a trend of declining sales for the series, perhaps as a result of a desire for nostalgia amid the carnage of World War I.