L. Frank Baum

Tip from Bridger: in The Magical Monarch of Mo, published 1898, a full-length children's fantasy novel by Baum, there is a land where there are sugar lakes, caramels grow on trees, and monkeys talk. Something about an instrumental/paradisical vision of nature - knowing how to get what you want from what there is? What about the talking monkeys? Wikipedia says that this book was supposed to be a sort of American Alice in Wonderland. What about The Wizard of Oz - how do I fit that in?