Pollyanna
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
6correct to beat the crowd
50 free Pollyanna trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Eleanor H. Porter's Pollyanna was a runaway bestseller when it appeared in 1913, and its heroine's name has been part of the language ever since. The story of an orphan who arrives at her stern aunt's house and refuses to be miserable is short, funny and sharper than its reputation suggests. This quiz follows the book closely: how the glad game began, what Aunt Polly's household makes of her niece, the neighbours Pollyanna wins over one by one, and the accident that tests her. Later questions cover the author, the sequel, the famous film versions and the ways the name has passed into everyday speech. It suits readers who have just finished the novel, classes and book clubs studying it, and anyone who grew up with one of the film adaptations. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In Pollyanna, what came in a missionary barrel instead of the doll Pollyanna wanted, inspiring the glad game?
A pair of crutches
A pair of crutches was all the barrel held for a child, so her father taught her to be glad she didn't need them. That first round became the game she plays all through the book.
Q 02Which child actress won a special juvenile Oscar for playing the title role in Walt Disney's 1960 film Pollyanna?
Hayley Mills
Hayley Mills received the Academy Juvenile Award for the part, the first of six films she made for Disney. Her accent was explained by giving the heroine parents from overseas.
Q 03In and around Philadelphia, the word Pollyanna is a colloquial name for which holiday gift-exchange tradition?
Secret Santa
Secret Santa is often called a Pollyanna in the Philadelphia area. In the tradition, members of a group are each randomly assigned one person to give a gift to.
Q 04In Eleanor H. Porter's novel Pollyanna, what strikes Pollyanna on her way home from school, leaving her unable to walk?
A motor car
A motor car hit her as she crossed the road, and nobody could say afterward who was to blame. Disney's 1960 film replaced the accident with a different one.
Q 05Thanks to Eleanor H. Porter's famous heroine, calling someone a Pollyanna suggests that person is unfailingly what?
Optimistic
Optimistic to a fault is what the word implies today, often as a put-down for naivety. In the novel the idea is gentler: always look for the good side of a situation.
Q 06In Pollyanna, which man, estranged from Aunt Polly for years after a lovers' quarrel, becomes her husband at the end?
Dr. Chilton
Dr. Chilton had stayed away from the house for years out of pride, until Aunt Polly finally sends for him to treat her niece. The couple marry at Pollyanna's bedside.
Q 07In Pollyanna, which plain meal in the kitchen does Aunt Polly order as punishment when Pollyanna misses the supper bell?
Bread and milk
Bread and milk backfired as a punishment: Pollyanna said she liked both, and liked eating with Nancy the maid. Aunt Polly was left baffled that anyone could be glad to be punished.
Q 08In Disney's 1960 film Pollyanna, how is Pollyanna badly hurt while sneaking back into the house after the town bazaar?
Falling from a tree
Falling from a tree as she climbs to her bedroom window replaced the novel's accident, which the film's writer-director called too coincidental. She drops her new doll at the window, then falls from the ledge.
Q 09In Pollyanna, which runaway orphan boy does Pollyanna try to find a home for, until John Pendleton agrees to adopt him?
Jimmy Bean
Jimmy Bean had walked out of the Orphans' Home, saying he was never wanted there. Aunt Polly and the church women both turn him away before he finally gets a home.
Q 10In Eleanor H. Porter's novel, Pollyanna's mother made up her daughter's name by joining the names of which relatives?
Her two sisters
Her two sisters, Polly and Anna, supplied the name, even though the family had opposed her marriage. Aunt Polly, the only one still alive, thinks the name ridiculous.
Q 11In Pollyanna, which bare, carpetless part of Aunt Polly's grand house becomes Pollyanna's bedroom when she arrives?
An attic room
An attic room with no carpet or pictures was Aunt Polly's choice for her niece. Pollyanna consoles herself that the view from its high window beats any picture on a wall.
Q 12Beldingsville, the fictional town where Aunt Polly's mansion stands in Pollyanna, lies in which New England state?
Vermont
Vermont is the setting, though Eleanor H. Porter herself was born in the state next door. Pollyanna reaches Beldingsville by train from a small town in the far West.
Q 13In Pollyanna, what is Pollyanna glad she cannot see, since her bare new bedroom has no looking-glass?
Her freckles
Q 21In Pollyanna, Nancy wrongly decides John Pendleton once courted Aunt Polly, but which woman had really refused him?
Jennie
Jennie, Pollyanna's mother, chose a poor young minister over the wealthy suitor her family preferred. Pendleton confesses it when he tells Pollyanna whose hand and heart he once wanted.
Q 22The final chapter of Eleanor H. Porter's Pollyanna, announcing that Pollyanna can walk again, takes which written form?
A letter
A letter from Pollyanna to her aunt and new uncle closes the book, written after almost ten months of treatment. In it she reports walking from her bed to the window.
Q 23In Pollyanna, what job does Old Tom, who remembers Pollyanna's mother as a girl, do for Aunt Polly?
Gardener
Her freckles bother her, so a bedroom without a mirror counts as a blessing. It is one of the first things she finds to be glad about in Aunt Polly's house.
Q 14In Pollyanna, what injury has John Pendleton suffered when Pollyanna finds him lying below a ledge in the woods?
A broken leg
A broken leg had left him helpless, so he hands Pollyanna his keys and sends her to telephone for a doctor. The rescue begins her friendship with the town's gruff recluse.
Q 15In Pollyanna, which dish does Aunt Polly send with Pollyanna on her first visit to the bedridden Mrs. Snow?
Calf's-foot jelly
Calf's-foot jelly was the gift, and Mrs. Snow at once said she had hoped for lamb broth. On a later visit Pollyanna brings jelly, broth and chicken together so nothing is missing.
Q 16Which silent-film superstar played the young heroine in the hit 1920 film version of Pollyanna, directed by Paul Powell?
Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford scored a major success with the part, and the film came to be regarded as one of her defining pictures. It took in about $1.1 million.
Q 17Which sequel is the only other Glad Book that Eleanor H. Porter wrote herself, the rest being left to other authors?
Pollyanna Grows Up
Pollyanna Grows Up followed two years after the original and carries the heroine to the age of twenty. Porter died in 1920, and every later Glad Book came from another writer.
Q 18In Pollyanna, which word does Aunt Polly keep giving as her reason for taking in an orphaned niece she never wanted?
Duty
Duty is Aunt Polly's watchword, repeated so often that Pollyanna decides she is going to hate the word. Her aunt even hands out lessons and new clothes in its name.
Q 19In Pollyanna, what does John Pendleton have strung across his sunny bedroom window as a treat for Pollyanna?
Prisms
Prisms taken off an old brass candlestick scatter rainbows around the sickroom. Pollyanna says the sun itself is trying to play the glad game.
Q 20What is the surname of Pollyanna, the orphaned minister's daughter in Eleanor H. Porter's best-selling novel?
Whittier
Whittier was her father's name. Harrington, the surname many readers guess, belongs to her mother's family and to Aunt Polly.
Gardener is his job, and Old Tom delights Pollyanna with stories of her mother. His son Timothy also works for Aunt Polly, driving her buggy.
Q 24In Pollyanna, which church group helped bring up Pollyanna out West and taught her to sew?
The Ladies' Aid
The Ladies' Aid of her father's small mission church brought Pollyanna up alongside him. Its members once argued over whether to buy her a black dress or put the money toward a red church carpet.
Q 25In Pollyanna, Beldingsville's church women turn away a local orphan, preferring to fund boys in which far-off country?
India
India got the money because foreign missions earned the society credit in its annual report. Pollyanna is dismayed that a boy in their own town counts for less.
Q 26In psychology, the Pollyanna principle is the tendency for people to remember which kind of items more accurately?
Pleasant ones
Pleasant ones stick better, a bias the psychologist Margaret Matlin and a colleague described in 1978. People also tend to recall their past as rosier than it really was.
Q 27Which Hollywood star plays the rich and strict Aunt Polly in Walt Disney's 1960 film version of Pollyanna?
Jane Wyman
Jane Wyman plays Polly Harrington, whose wealth controls most of the town in the film. Walt Disney called the cast the most important in his studio's history.
Q 28In Pollyanna, what does John Pendleton ask Pollyanna to do, an offer she refuses out of loyalty to Aunt Polly?
Come live with him
Come live with him was the plea, because his great stone house had never felt like a home. Pollyanna's counteroffer is the orphan boy she has been trying to place.
Q 29In Pollyanna, where does Pollyanna go to sleep one stifling night, making Aunt Polly fear a burglar is about?
The sun parlor roof
The sun parlor roof, a little way below another upstairs window, was cooler than her hot bedroom. Aunt Polly telephoned for help, and the men came with lanterns to find her niece instead of an intruder.
Q 30In Pollyanna, which household pet nudges open a bedroom door so that Pollyanna overhears she may never walk again?
A cat
A cat called Fluffy, a stray Pollyanna had talked her aunt into keeping, pushed the unlatched door ajar. Aunt Polly's anguished cry in the hall then carried straight to the bed.