For those who liked Benbow and the Angels (1952), Homer Sees the Queen (1953) and other hardy English adventures,- sometimes with a touch of magic, sometimes not, here's more fun in store. It is mostly about Tessa and Steven, children of a sculptor father and a doctor mother, but it also has a lot to do with their dull, scholarly cousins Amy, Doris and Winston, whom they visit for a summer and liven up. The initial opportunity presents itself when Tessa acquires a small black animal figurine at a local bazaar. Mapledurham, the figurine, turns out to have magic powers and as practical wishes are made and granted there are ample doses of fortunate catastrophes, even to lions in the woodshed, before Mapledurham's mystery is solved.