HEIDI

Heidi is a little girl of scarcely five, when her aunt Deta leaves her to the care of her grandfather. The grandfather, called the Alm-uncle by the townspeople, is a surly old man with bushy brows and beard; strangely he avoids people and does not go into the town at all, living with just a small wooden cottage and two goats that the little shepherd Peter brings home every day. 

Everyone worries for Heidi for the Alm-Uncle is known to be not suitable to care for small children; but surprisingly, Heidi finds out that inside his surly mask he is a kindhearted man. And it is not only her grandfather who cares for her, for the nature of the Alps and the merry herd of goats, and the shepherd boy Peter, and his family cannot help loving the bright, sunny child. They all look out for her and is heartbroken when she is to be sent to Frankfurt.

The aunt takes Heidi to a sick girl called Clara, to help her out at home so Clara is not lonely. However, Heidi doe not cope well with the foreign city of Frankfurt and returns to Alps after being very sick. After this, Clara comes to visit; on the beautiful mountains of Alps, Heidi gives back Clara the health and her happiness she had lost in the cold city of illness and smoke, allowing her to manage her work in school like other children; Heidi's soft heart and kind words heals and slowly change everyone for good. 

This heartwarming story of lovely Heidi in the vast, beautiful mountains of Alps is a wonderful classic for adults and children alike.


Johanna Spyri is the author of Heidi, the book full of life and healthy, flourishing energy brought to every page from the vast snowfields and the green beauties of Alps. All of her works and her own life were upon the mountains of Alps, 'going aflame in the setting sun every day'. Her love for the pure nature and the power they had upon sick and downhearted people is recollected well on her best known work, Heidi. She published the first volume of the Heidi duology in 1880, when she had been fifty-three; the second volume came out the next year. The lovely characters deep in the depths of thriving wildlife found in Heidi can be seen as the embodiment of her educational belief, as well as that they were made from her own experiences in life. The poetic descriptions of nature and the love for children were the main themes of her works; her religious belief is also portrayed. Born in the arms of Alps and having died in it, it may be said that the mountains loved her and she had loved them back with her works.


-Description written by Ruhilee-