This book is about five little girls who lived in a small remote town in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Queensland, Australia. After their mother died, the girls at the age of ten to two along with a young lad who the family had taken in lived on their own in an old haunted house when their father had to work away from home. As they grew older their father taught the older girls about the birds and the bees the hard way causing them to mistrust him, but still being very young they relied on him to care for them. They quickly learned to fend for themselves as best they could with whatever was available during those years and didn't expect any help as those years were hard for all the families living in a remote area.