Common Sense Note
A tonic in cynical times, this books offers a philosophy of life that can have a big impact on younger children. Playing the Glad Game is worth a try for any family. Like other books of its time, Pollyanna contains a few comments that are considered racist by modern standards: a maid is referred to as "Black Tilly," and there are several comments to the effect that little boys from India are "heathens" who "don't know any more than to think that God was in that [idol]."
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Matt Berman
That Pollyanna has fallen out of favor says more about our cynical times than it does about the book. We like to think we have a monopoly on hard times, and that books like Pollyanna are the sentimental relics of a simpler age. But it was first published (to instant acclaim and success) in the year leading up to WWI, and its kindly philosophy is as relevant today as it was then, even if the world it inhabits seems like a fantasy now. There's a reason it has stayed steadily in print for nearly a century, and has been translated into many languages, as well as numerous movie, TV, and stage adaptations in many countries, including even a Japanese animé cartoon series, and a recent Masterpiece Theater production.
A tearjerker it certainly is, as are many of the greatest works of children's literature. Though its heroine's name has unfairly become a byword for phony optimism, Pollyanna is, in fact, a courageous and resourceful girl whose positive outlook is determined, conscious, and hard-won, and ultimately transformative, both for the characters in the book and for its readers. As with many classic books, it's best as a read-aloud for experienced listeners who have not yet entered adolescence, and who may still be open to the view of life it espouses.
From the Book:
"You see I'd wanted a doll, and father had written them so. But when the barrel came the lady wrote that there hadn't any dolls come in, but the little crutches had. So she sent 'em along as they might come in handy for some child, sometime. And that's when we began it. ... the game was to just find something about everything to be glad about -- no matter what 'twas," rejoined Pollyanna earnestly. "And we began right then -- on the crutches."
Plot Summary:
Pollyanna has had a hard life. Her mother died when she was young, and she has been impoverished all her life. Now, at the age of eleven, her father has died too, and she is sent to live with her aunt, an austere and humorless woman who does her duty -- and nothing more. She relegates Pollyanna to a hot and barren attic room and hopes that she won't disrupt her quiet household routine too much.
But disruption is only the beginning of what Pollyanna will do to her life. For Pollyanna's father had given her a gift years before, a lever with which to move the world. It's called the Glad Game, and with it Pollyanna proceeds to turn the entire town upside down.
Related Books:
Also by Eleanor H. Porter
Pollyanna Grows Up
Just David
More Gladdening Kids
Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgeson Burnett
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgeson Burnett
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgeson Burnett
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
Heidi by Johanna Spyri
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggins
Sir Gibbie by George MacDonald
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Sexual ContentFormer beaus are referred to as "lovers," which did not mean then what it does now. |
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Social BehaviorSome mild, casual racism (see Note), typical of the times in which the book was written. Pollyanna is a model of one positive way to deal with life. |
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