The indomitable Madeline and her 11 friends live at a school run by Miss Clavel in an old house in Paris. The smallest of all the girls, Madeline is also the most adventurous. She loses her appendix but gains an awesome scar, falls into the Seine only to be rescued by a dog whom the girls later adopt and name Genevieve, and matches wits with Pepito, the devilish son of the Spanish Ambassador who moves in next door.