Elinora Gassbeek has been the matron of the Little Tulip Orphanage for many years. In all that time no one has broken the rules of Baby Abandonment on their doorstop until the Autumn of 1880. That year there are five babies left in peculiar circumstances. one in a tin toolbox, one in a coal bucket, one in a picnic hamper, one in a wheat sack, and finally, one in a coffin-shaped basket. There given the names: Lotta, Egg, Fenna, Sem, and Milou. Milou is determined to find her birth parents any way she can and help them to escape the clutches of the cruel matron Gassbeek. They are all deemed unadoptable and they are left there until a sinister gentleman tries to adopt them all. They find out their true abilities as well as their strengths and realize family is not always about being blood related. ( )