It has been five years since The Wonderful Wizard of Oz took place. Uncle Henry has been ordered by his doctor to take a vacation from the stress and labor of having to replace the Kansas farmhouse due to the first one being swept away in a cyclone. He is accompanied by his adolescent niece, Dorothy Gale (this is the first of the Oz books in which the reader learns her last name), while aboard a small steamship headed to Australia while Aunt Em and Dorothy''s pet dog Toto, stay behind to look after the newly built farmhouse. While traveling on the sea, a terrible storm suddenly hits, bringing rain and lightning, tossing the little ship violently over the waves. Henry and Dorothy are separated when she is accidentally thrown overboard and cast away into the water along with Billina, a yellow hen that was also on board. The two take refuge in a wooden chicken-coop floating nearby.