The Wind on the Moon (New York Review Children's Collection)

Winner of the Carnegie Medal

In the English village of Midmeddlecum, Major Palfrey asks his two daughters to behave themselves while he is off at war. Sighs Dinah, "I think that we are quite likely to be bad, however hard we try not to be," and her sister Dorinda adds helpfully, "Very often, when we think we are behaving well, some grown-up person says we are really quite bad. It's difficult to tell which is which." Sure enough, the mischievous sisters soon 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 which turns them into kangaroos), and—in the company of a golden puma and silver falcon—set off to rescue their father from the tyrant of Bombardy. A tale of hilarity and great adventure, The Wind on the Moon is also a work of high seriousness; after all, "life without freedom," as the valiant puma makes clear, "is a poor, poor thing."