'Oh, it seems so wonderful that I'm going to live with you and belong to you.

I've never belonged to anybody - not really' When a scrawny, freckled girl with bright red hair arrives on Prince Edward Island, Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert are taken by surprise; they'd asked the orphanage for a quiet boy to help with the farmwork at Green Gables.

But how can you reject a child like an unwanted parcel, especially when she tells you her life so far has been a 'perfect graveyard of unburied hopes'?

So the beguiling chatterbox stays. Full of imagination, spark and spirit, it is not long before Anne Shirley wins their hearts.