The 1870's. South Africa. Life is normal at the farm on the slopes of a Karoo Kopje.Things change when the sinister, eccentric Bonaparte Blenkins with bulbous nose and chimney pot hat arrives. Their childhood is disrupted by the bombastic Irishman who claims blood ties with Wellington and Queen Victoria and so gains uncanny influence over the girls' gross stupid stepmother.

Based on the favourite Afrikaans children's novel, Hanna is 14 going on 15 and is part of a rather unconventional family. They go on holiday to the Cederberg for a family reunion, which leads to plenty of surprises and reconciliation. Hanna is an intelligent and imaginative young girl who's earned herself the nickname "Hoekom," because she's forever questioning things. When her eccentric mother decides that the family – including her gay biological dad, actor stepfather, detestable half-brother and two stepbrothers – should spend their winter holiday in a remote house on a mountain, they end up stranded with nowhere to go and no-one to turn to except each other.

Die Wonderwerker tells the story of Eugène Marais, a famous Afrikaans writer, poet and researcher. The story focuses on the few months he spends on the Van Rooyen's farm, where he falls in love with the 19-year-old Jane Brayshaw.