AustLit

'Dick Hawkins escapes from an unhappy home-life with his tame wallaby, Frong Frong. No sooner had they joined the wild wallabies than they were fired upon by white hunters [...] Dick finds himself turning into a wallaby. The grandmother wallaby of the tribe reminds Dick in an indefinable way of someone he once knew, and he also becomes strongly attached to Frong's cousin, Mia Mia. After a ferocious "wallaby drive" in which Dick acquits himself creditably, the wallaby family shelter in a cave inhabited by an old man wallaby who sings a nonsenical song. The hunt over, Dick sets out to convince his relatives of the evils of hunting wallabies. When he is reabsorbed into his human home the grandmother wallaby and Mia Mia take on the forms of his mother, and his sister, Ettie' (Saxby, A History of Australian Children's Literature 1841-1941, p. 50).

'Jim Morgan, the son of improvident parents, performs a kindness for a wealthy lady who, as a reward, undertakes to educate him. As part of his training he is sent to the nautical training ship Vernon which was established by Henry Parkes in 1866. Jim makes good and eventually becomes a respected citizen. The chief interest in the story today lies in the reference to the Vernon, an interesting experiment in Australian education' (Saxby, A History of Australian Children's Literature 1841-1941, 65).