Ten-year-old Maria is an orphan living on a crumbling English estate with no one but a kindly cook, a distracted professor and a spiteful governess for company. That is, until she discovers the Lilliputians - each no more than 6 inches high - who are descendants of those described in Gulliver's Travels. Determined to keep their whereabouts hidden from the human world, the tiny people are at first reluctant to accept Maria as their friend. But when they are accidentally discovered by her interfering governess and the scheming vicar, they must join forces to save themselves from a terrible fate.