Pollyanna

Pollyanna is a book for children written by Eleanor Hodgman Porter. It was published in 1913.

Pollyanna-The game Story
A girl called Pollyanna is an orphan (her parents are dead). She goes to live with her Aunt Polly (who did not marry) in Beldingsville, Vermont. Pollyanna is happy all the time, and makes other people happy. She plays a game called the "glad game", where you find something to be happy about even when you are sad. Soon, everyone in the town is happy. An accident occurs and Pollyanna is left unable to move her legs.  She has to learn to be happy again, and then she gets better because a doctor makes her well again. Aunt Polly and the doctor marry.

Summary of the story

Miss Polly Harrington is known around town for being a stern, hard woman who is set in her ways. So it is only a sense of duty that causes her to open her home to Pollyanna, her newly orphaned niece. But Pollyanna is a very special little girl, with a very special game that she teaches to the townspeople. Soon, everyone in town is happier, and glad that Pollyanna came into their lives - everyone, that is, but Aunt Polly. But then a terrible accident threatens to ruin Pollyanna's game forever, and everyone wonders who can teach this little girl to be happy again.

Notes
If someone is called "Pollyanna", it means they are always happy like Pollyanna is. The "Pollyanna principle" means people say yes to positive statements (For example, instead of "What do you think of green?", you can say "Don't you agree that green is a nice colour?").

Pollyanna was an irrepressibly, cheerful child. So cheerful that her name survives in any standard American Dictionary. - 'an excessively or blindly optimistic person.'

 Other websites 
Text of the book

Category:1910s books
Category:20th-century American novels
Category:American children's books
Category:1913 works