The owner of the long shadow

There is an exceptional attraction in the stories where orphans take on the heroism, because it is real heroism. When you go out into the world, and face it with an open chest, without a social system to support and protect you. It seems logical if we remember more childhood stories that left their marks on our hearts; Heidi, Annie, Tarzan, Sarah or Sally, Oliver Twist, Tom Sawyer, and even Harry Potter. These are the heroes, through whom we learn to love life, and to truly belong to the world, as Judy Abbott, the heroine of The Little Shadow, a novel considered one of the most translated and popular among readers. The original novel The Little Shadow was written in 1912, and since then it has been a source of inspiration for readers, writers, and artists alike, and has been repeatedly adapted into theatrical and musical performances, movies, series, and even cartoons. Jean Webster narrates in this novel the adventure of Judy Abbott, who left the orphanage because one of the guardians decided to take responsibility for her education after noticing her exceptional talent in writing, especially humorous writing, and her insistence on happiness as a choice in life, not a right inherited from birth. This novel is considered the counter-text to all fairy tales. It gradually and gently debunks the story of the princess imprisoned in the tower waiting for a prince to rescue her, and if there is a savior appearing at the beginning of the work, in the form of a long, unknown shadow, then we will follow Judy's path as she frees herself from his guardianship, makes her own decisions, and grows in ways no one could have imagined. Taqween Publications and Buthaina Al-Ibrahim presented the novel The Little Shadow by Jean Webster with a beautiful translation for the Arab reader as part of a collection of translated novels issued by the library.