Tal: His Marvelous Adventures with Noom-Zor-Noom
novel by Paul Fenimore Cooper
Tal: His Marvelous Adventures with Noom-Zor-Noom is a children's fantasy novel by Paul Fenimore Cooper, illustrated by Ruth Reeves, and published by William Morrow in 1929. New editions were published in 1957 by Stephen Daye Press and in 2001 by Purple House Press. The story features an orphan who goes on a quest to the land of Troom with a wise storyteller, Noom-Zor-Noom, and his talking donkey.
Plot summary
A man and his talking donkey take a young boy, Tal, on an adventure. The man has been chosen to tell a story on an occasion of great importance and it must be the very best story possible. The man has chosen Tal to travel with him, thinking that the boy will be able to help him choose the right story. Each day they travel through different lands and meet new characters, and each night the man shares a new story with Tal. He is expecting that, by journey's end, Tal will choose the best story.
Reception
Tal has been compared favorably to The Wizard of Oz and also has a journey plot.
Noom-Zor-Noom's stories
The book contains numerous stories that Noom-Zor-Noom tells on their way to Troom.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Tal: His Marvelous Adventures with Noom-Zor-Noom” as novel by Paul Fenimore Cooper. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as novel by Paul Fenimore Cooper. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7678688. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1929, 1957 and 2001.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Tal: His Marvelous Adventures with Noom-Zor-Noom” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.