AustLit

'Jo’s sickly mother dies on their little farm, and she appears to have become an orphan.  She is taken in by their neighbour John Anderson, a widower, and his housekeeper, Mrs Collins.  She goes to live with them at the successful Peak Farm, in the Gippsland hills.

'Jo has a very sunny disposition and cheers John up, driving his unsociableness away with her delightful nature.  Her chief sorrow in life was that she had not been born a boy!

'But not everyone wishes her well, and it seems as if her real father may still be alive and looking for her.  She wants to stay with John, though, and they flee to Tasmania.' (Publication summary)