Review: POLLYANNA by Eleanor H Porter

 About the Author:  

Eleanor Emily Hodgman was born in Littleton Hampshire, on December 19, 1868, the daughter of Llewella French and Francis Fletcher Hodgman. She was trained as a singer, attending the New England Conservatory for several years. In 1892 she married John Lyman Porter and relocated to Massachusetts, after which she began writing and publishing her short stories under the name Eleanor H Porter (retaining her maiden surname & her husband's together) and, later, novels. She died in Cambridge Massachusetts, on May 21, 1920.

Absorbing, &  Life Changing!

The Book:

The book has pictorial representations and runs over 230 pages in a font that would make all children enjoy irrespective of the biological age; 8 to 80 as they say and why not even 100!

It is presented thru 32 short chapters. Quite an easy and enjoyable read-till-you-finish kind of a book. I read thru in one go as it was impossible to put it down till the end. So absorbing.

It is one the best Children's classics that I have come to know in long time. Author brings to life the lead character of the book POLLYANNA, a young girl of 11 years of age who moves, on the early death of her mother. to her Aunt Ms Polly, a stern rich lady.  How she transforms Ms Polly & the neighbourhood is simply amazing with her innocence & determination to be glad in all situations.  

Pollyana is a jovial child.  Always happy and makes everyone around her happy. Like with most children's classics there is always a thing or two to be learnt to live life. Pollyanna teaches all to   L I V E   life and not just live. 

She plays the 'just being glad' game with one and all. It is an interesting game and I would not take away the curiosity by spilling the beans in this review. Would rather the readers explore and find out for themselves. Just a clue could be shared; which is, find happiness in seemingly adverse situations based on one's perception of the adversity in a given situation.

I wish I had read it when I was a child. It would have shaped my life better; not that I am not happy but the reading would surly have helped being a better human being & certainly more happy thru the challenging times that one goes thru.

My take from the book. We all can learn to be glad about everything we have; if only we make a sincere effort find one. Just be glad and enjoy life to the fullest by  

     L i v i n g !

I recommend this book to those who want to be happy in life and want to enjoy and live in its literal and figurative sense.  Explore the game - 'just being glad'.  Game, are you, for the exploration!  I feel you do. So just go ahead and immerse in the book asap.

Please click 👉 to buy

Review: ANIMAL FARM By GEROGE ORWELL

 About the Author:

George Orwell, a pseudonym of Eric Arthur Blair was born in Motihari, Bihar, India (then came under Bengal) on 25th June, 1903. Well over hundred years ago! 

His father was a British Official working with Indian Civil Services. His mother was French. He returned to England in 1911 to attend a boarding school in Sussex coast. He was a bright student and won scholarships of Winchester & Eton. He chose Eton. He died early at the age of 47 on 21st January, 1950. His ideologies & opinions lived on since, through his work.

R  i   v   e   t   i   n   g

Presentation:

The book is printed in India by India Book Distributors Limited in a pleasant eye soothing type face. Really enjoyable as far as the reading goes.

The book is short and runs about 80 pages.  It is a story of a farm owned by one Mr. Jones & inhabited by animals. It used to be called - Manor Farm. There lived a boar called Major, who,  has a strange dream one night and wanted to share it with fellow animals. So one day he assembles all the farm animals in the barn and shares his dream.  He dreams of an independent animal farm which will be managed by animals and there would be no man. He was convinced that man only exploits animals and thus has no right to continue exploitation.  He convinces the animals for a coup. He composes a song and calls it 'Beasts of England'. The animals get excited after hearing it from Major and echo it in their own liking. 

Major's speech has a lasting effect on the animals and especially on the two young boars - Snowball, a vivacious & inventive pig but with less character as perceived by the rest of the animals on the farm & Napoleon, a large fierce-looking Berkshire boar, not much of a talker but had the reputation of getting his own way. And the most popular one pig called Squealer, eloquent to the core, nimble,  twinkling eyes & quite persuasive. They take upon themselves to have the coup advocated by Major who dies soon after his famous coup speech. 

The coup is successfully marshalled and Mr. Jones is driven out. Animals rejoice with the Beast of England. There lived also a horse called Boxer who was quite dexterous and always worked hard & had set himself a motto - "I will work harder!"

The pigs on the farm who were more intelligent than the rest and had even acquired skills to read and write started governing the farm with Napoleon emerging as their leader by self proclamation. He smartly gets rid of other intelligent boar Snowball to have the competition for leadership to himself.  How he plots his way thru exercising his superiority over the lesser animals; lesser by intellect, that is.

Napoleon slowly works towards controlling all the affairs of the farm with his sharp brains and makes the animals slog while he and his coterie of pigs enjoy the dividends of the hard work put in by the rest.

Napoleon persuades the animals to build a Wind Mill on the farm (the idea was originally developed by Snowball whom Napoleon gets expunged from the farm).  Boxer putting the maximum efforts followed by other animals on the farm. What is interesting is the way Napoleon uses Squealer to convey his wicket ideas effectively to get what he wants.

The Wind Mill is built and destroyed - once by nature, the other time by Men but is finally built with tireless efforts of Boxer and animals who were goaded to making it cunningly by Napoleon.

The whole story is built slowly and so effectively that the reader is riveted to it from the word go. You would not like to put it down till you have finished reading it. So captivating and thought provoking at the same time. How the politics of power works. And one can easily relate to the every day politics that goes around especially by the power hungry individuals all across the globe! 

One may hate it, only to love the narrative finally and appreciate the way the author conveys the reality which was then prevalent when the book was written during the British Raj & is so relevant even today; only the animal farm characters have the face of a human. Their acts human or otherwise is left to the readers to decide and make peace with it.

This is a book that should be read by students who are preparing themselves for the world once they complete the studies. And all those who are interested in understanding the human psyche after all human beings are also called   'social-animal'.  Aren't  they?  

There is a lot to be learned from...

Happy Reading!                Click to buy