When Sara Crewe is brought from India to attend Miss Minchin's boarding school for girls in London, she arrives looking rather like a princess, with trunks full of the finest clothes. Yet, despite having her own pony and carriage, private room and personal maid, Sara is never a snob to her fellow pupils. Instead, she is kind, thoughtful and generous, and soon she is friends with all the girls there.

But when the terrible news of her father's death and failed financial investments arrives, Sara is suddenly left a penniless orphan. She is allowed to stay at the school, but as a servant, and the cruel Miss Minchin starves and ill-treats her. Faced with day after day of endless, exhaustin