Sometime around 1971, I saw the dramatised version of "Knock Three Times!" on TV in Australia. It left a big impression on my pre-teen self, but I didn't get around to reading the 1917 book it was based on until now. I think it's a bit of a lost classic, with enough originality and verve to be on the same shelf as "Alice in Wonderland" and "The Wizard of Oz".

Instead of a rabbit hole, wardrobe, or house-launching tornado, the magical land here is accessed via a door in a particular tree in the wood. After (of course) knocking three times, we are granted access to "The Possible World". Our "Impossible" dimension is seen as tainted, and it serves as a sort of dumping ground for evil creatures exiled from the fantasy land to keep it pure. The nomenclature references the concept of "the best of all possible worlds", although thankfully there seems to be no attempt to lean on bogus irrational concepts of theodicy and Christian apologetics.

Other stories have their murderous pirates or a wicked queen, but the fearsome villain in this tale is a giant pumpkin which terrorises the land. It moves by rolling like a wheel, and cruelly attacks its victims by mutilating or transforming them with its evil magic touch. It's a psychedelic and, at first absurd creation, but when The Pumpkin appears stealthily on a stormy night and attacks one of the protagonists, it's hug-your-teddy scary for REAL, kids!

Predatory best-in-show giant vegetables aside, the Possible World is a domain where most people are welcoming and trustworthy, where the denizens all come together to fight the evil which has infected their fair land.

The major exception is the "spies" of the enemy, who derive great glee and satisfaction from deceiving and entrapping anyone who might thwart their dreams of domination. I couldn't help thinking of the disturbing phenomenon of the deluded supporters of malignant despotism infecting the real world as I write. The pumpkin in "Knock Three Times!" is grey, but it doesn't take much to imagine it as an orange would-be dictator. Fuck Trump!

But I digress.

The book is written in a somewhat condescending style typical of children's stories of that era, but it's charming enough. More importantly, it's a refreshing girl power story. Sexist drivel clearly wasn't compulsory in decades past. Now is the time to celebrate feminist triumphs which have been suppressed, even in our supposedly more enlightened times. It sounds naive now even to think the dismal future we find ourselves in is any better than the time this book was written.

"Knock Three Times!" is now in the public domain. I read the Project Gutenberg edition which preserves the illustrations and is very good. The television series seems to have sunk without a trace, with no online clips or DVD release in evidence.