Cirrus@Austlit

A child contemplates the size of insects and plants if she were small and they large. She decides that it's better to be the size she is that suffer the terrifying risks of being smaller than the insects. There is a specific link to Lewis Carroll in text and accompanying illustration of a fez-capped hookah-smoking caterpillar reminiscent of the adventures in Alice in Wonderland.

After he over-indulges at a party, a young boy dreams that he is a 'strange beast with wings'. He wonders whether other creatures have nightmares too. Contains intertextual reference to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland in text and accompanying illustration, in the representation of an enormous human hand appearing at the window of Friend Rabbit's house.

A young girl envies the children who play in the street when she is required by her mother to be dressed in white, read books and dress dolls instead of romping in the street like the 'common' children.

This short poem suggests that it is better to shoo a fly with laughter than with violence.

An eight year old girl and her brother from Sunnyside Farm are lost in the bush. They fear being eaten by the 'big native bear', are protected by possums, and rescued by their dog, Bright.

A retelling and continuation of the traditional rhyme 'The Queen of Hearts' which invokes the card game, Bridge: 'When Hearts are trumps, expect some bumps'.

A spider tries to take Sadie's ice cream. Sadie refuses to be afraid and says he must buy his own.

A young girl imagines making her home in the zoo, freeing the 'queer and harmless' animals from their cages and running a race with them. She claims that she would give the prize to the last place-getter, ensuring happiness for the loser, and praise for herself.

A child meets a hybrid oxytoise (an ox with a turtle shell), who explains that the sea is salty because he collects his tears in a cup and tips it upon the sand. He asks the child to not be cheerful so that he can remain sad to replenish the oceans.

The fat man boasts that he is happier than the thin man, and can do better tricks, like balancing an eel on his nose. He claims that the thin man could not stand on his head without driving into the ground like a garden stake.

Re-versionings of the traditional rhymes 'Ding Dong Dell', 'See Saw, Margery Daw', and 'Hey Diddle Diddle'.

The selfish hen refuses to give up her eggs to Mary. Mary threatens to take the hen to the grocer's.

An alphabetised collection of humorous short verse about girls and their zoo animals, for example:

Freda had a ferret fed
On peaches and lamb's fry,
It fretted much because she would
Not give it rabbit pie.

An appreciation of the daily providers of goods and services to the average house in the 1920s, including the milkman, butcher, grocer, and gas man.

A puppy may only seem small and harmless to grown-ups; to a young girl, the pup is a threat to 'nice pink knees' and the frill of muslin frocks.

A girl compares her intuitive and imaginary view of the world with her sister's scientific, rationalist view.

An explanation of the events of the traditional rhyme, 'Jack and Jill'.

A young girl dreams that she is Alice, who is invited to tea with the March Hare and the Hatter.

An account of Jack's day, from waking to playing, to bathing and sleeping.

A child considers the way her imagination works. Although she knows that she mustn't touch the rabbit- and rat-poison on the top shelf, she imagines heading out to play with the fairy-rat and bunny-elf.