Pollyanna, an expert at her favorite "Glad Game" of always looking at the bright side in her numerous trials, is one of the most popular and enduring characters in all of children's literature.As Pollyanna arrives in Beldingsville to live with her strict and dutiful maiden aunt, she exclaims, "Oh, Aunt Polly, I don't know how to be glad enough that you let me come to live with you!" And from this point she begins to bring cheer into everybody's life, including the sick, the lonely, and the just plain miserable. All are transformed, until one day when something so terrible happens that even Pollyanna doesn't know how to feel glad anymore.
American novelist Eleanor H. Porter's Pollyanna series and "Glad Game" generated a popular phenomenon in its day. The improbable heroine remains popular today and the name Pollyanna is well known to be a stereotype for a person who is characterized by irrepressible optimism and a tendency to find good in everything.