A family, snowbound in a vacation cabin, discovers adventure in surrounding wild life, three children they find in the snow, and a search for a lost recipe.
While visiting the seaport town of Ragged Cove, Massachusetts, the Alden children find the ship's log of the Flying Cloud, shipwrecked in 1869, supposedly during a mutiny.
Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny decide to investigate when they travel with their grandfather to buy honey at the Sherman's honey farm only to discover that the bees, for some reason, have quit making honey.
A friendly writer with a metal detector, the mysterious inhabitants of a tower house, and the discovery of a locket in the sand are ingredients for the Aldens' latest mystery.
When the Aldens take up the case to investigate if a catastrophic oil spill that affected hundreds of species could have been prevented, they are led on an adventure to help other endangered animals around the world.
In the year before they become the orphans known as the Boxcar children, Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny Alden live with their parents at Fair Meadow Farm, where, although times are hard, they take in a family who has been stranded in their car during a blizzard.