When red-headed orphan Anne Shirley arrives at Green Gables, she feels sure she's found the home she has always longed for. Her new adoptive parents, the Cuthberts, are less certain - they had asked the orphanage for a boy. But before long, Anne's irrepressible optimism and loving nature charms them. While her temper is unpredictable and her extravagant imagination makes her dreamily whimsical and prone to comic mishap, they come to love Anne as if she were their own child.