Ludwig Bemelmans

With everyone else sick in bed with a cold on Christmas Eve, it is up to Madeline to run the school, and she finds a remarkable helper in a rug-selling magician.

Of the famous twelve little girls living in two straight lines, the smallest one is fearless Madeline. But something is not right at the boarding school in Paris run by Miss Clavell: the house next door is now the Spanish Embassy, kind Lady Covington has died, and Lord Covington is busily plotting to sell the school! Madeline springs into action - befriending the lonely Spanish boy next door, refusing to eat a chicken she has personally met, and...