Pollyanna Pollyanna Pollyanna is a best-selling 1913 novel by Eleanor H. Porter that is now considered a classic of children's literature, with the title character's name becoming a popular term for someone with the same very optimistic outlook: a subconscious bias towards the positive is often described as the Pollyanna principle. The book was such a success that Porter soon produced a sequel, "Pollyanna Grows Up" (1915). Eleven more "Pollyanna" sequels, known as "Glad Books", were later published, most of them written by Elizabeth Borton or Harriet Lummis Smith. Further sequels followed, including "Pollyanna Plays the Game" by Colleen L. Reece,
What Is the What That Happens Will Happen Today". Tom Tykwer plans to adapt the novel into a film. In 2009, the novel received the Prix Médicis étranger in France. What Is the What What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng is a 2006 novel written by Dave Eggers. It is based on the life of Valentino Achak Deng, a Sudanese child refugee who immigrated to the United States under the Lost Boys of Sudan program. It was a finalist for the National Book Award. As a boy, Achak is separated from his family during the Second Sudanese Civil War when