Before heading off to war Major Palfrey reminds his two daughters, Dinah and Dorinda, to be good while he is gone. But the sisters aren’t sure that they can do it. As Dinah admits, “I think that we are quite likely to be bad, however hard we try not to be.” Sure enough, the sisters soon are up to their usual mischief. They convince a judge that minds must be changed as often as socks, stage an escape from the local zoo (thanks to a witch’s potion that turns them into kangaroos), and—in the company of a golden puma and silver falcon—set off to rescue their father from the wicked tyrant of Bombardy. Written at the height of World War II, this tale of hilarity and great adventure is also a work of high seriousness; after all, “life without freedom,” as the valiant puma makes clear, “is a poor, poor thing.”
