Aging siblings Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, who run a tidy farm on Canada's Prince Edward Island, decide to adopt an orphan boy to help with the work. Instead, a mistake sends them Anne Shirley: a skinny, red-haired, irrepressibly talkative eleven-year-old with a runaway imagination and a gift for finding wonder, and trouble, everywhere she looks. Shy Matthew is instantly charmed; practical Marilla is far less sure what to do with her. Montgomery's beloved 1908 novel opens as this unexpected girl arrives at Green Gables, ready to turn two quiet, orderly lives, and the whole of sleepy Avonlea, joyfully upside down.