It focuses on April, a fourteen-year-old girl who was abandoned by her mother in a dustbin when she was only a few minutes old.
However she does befriend one of Patricia's new foster children - Tanya - a character seen before along with Pat in another of Jacqueline Wilson's books: Bad Girls.
Janet committed suicide a few years after adopting April, while battling depression stemming from her husband's affairs and the break-up of her marriage.
When April later comes across Sunnybank, it redirects her to Gina, who is mother to a young son called Benjamin and does conferences there to steer the children to behave themselves.
Here April stayed for five years and formed a close bond with her history teacher Miss Marion Bean.
[1] During its initial run on BBC One, Dustbin Baby was watched by 2.3 million viewers, giving it a 15.4% share of the audience.