What a charming, lovely story! I picked up a copy of this classic at a library book sale years ago to seed our home shelves for possible discovery by my children one day, but it never got any takers. I brought it on a trip as a small, portable book suitable for light reading in amusement park ride lines if necessary. I managed only a couple of pages in that setting but was immediately entranced by the love of nature and goodness in the Swiss Alps on display. You, too, can fall in love with Heidi and her manic love of the bounty of nature.

I was also compelled to read on by this gem of a phrase on the second page:

"That would be all very well if he were like other people," asseverated stout Barbel warmly, "but you know what he is."

Asseverated stout Barbel warmly! My edition (Airmont Books, 1963) fails to credit the translator and I don't know how this sentence played in the original German, but I love it. I really need some in-person nerdy reading friends so we can pull out this phrase at intervals in conversation. It deserves placement alongside, "said the robot pimp disdainfully," from another classic work.

My enjoyment was marred only by the frequency of God stuff in the second half, what was originally a second book. I think it's alienating for non-Christians.

Heidi is a basic white girl with a fondness for mountain air and goats.

Having seen bits of the film some time ago, I thought it was definitely time to read the book. I knew the outline of the story before I started, so I kind of knew what to expect.

This reminded me of The Secret Garden in some ways, which I struggled to enjoy, and this book lead me along the same path. The story was vague in parts, and certainly didn't spark enough interest in me to lose sleep over it.

The characters were skeletal in description, and Spyri never elaborated on any of them enough for me to really feel fully invested, except for Heidi, perhaps.

Heidi is portrayed as some sort of miracle worker, and she can apparently solve everyone's problems, with the click of her fingers. That's great, it really is, but she's only five.

Religion was very heavy throughout this, and it actually felt more ridiculous as the story went on, and this unfortunately, kind of ruined it for me.

This book isn't one I'd recommend to my children, as I personally think that Anne of Green Gables is better, but I can see many just buying it for the beautiful cover.

Thanks to all the bowdlerized, Disneyfied stupidifications it's been through, poor old Heidi's story gets a bum rap. In fact, Heidi is no sap, and more to the point, her friend Clara with the wheelchair is no timid Victorian dying violet. Somebody plonked this great big book in my lap when I was seven years old, a good reader, and in need of something heavy to hold me down on a long car trip. It worked; it took me off from my flat prairie summer to a land of purple mountain peaks and jumping goats and snow that piled up above the windows in the winter.

Heidi comes to live with her grandfather when she is five years old, up high on the mountain where he shuns and is shunned by the village below. For the next three years, she sees almost no one else but the goatherd, Peter, and his mother, grandmother, and the goats. She is never lonely; she is like a nature spirit, communing with the wind, sun, trees, eagles and flowers. It is only when her aunt comes to take her away to Frankfort, to be a companion to ill, housebound Clara, that homesickness and loneliness set in. Heidi's rescue concludes the first half of the book, the half most people know; how Heidi heals the people in her life is the second and more interesting half.

I have returned to this book so often that my 1921 edition is all worn out and crumbly, with the plates falling out. Spyri creates a world I would like to live in. I don't know if it ever existed. There are elements of melodrama in the story that are sometimes too sweet for the modern palate, but the scenery is vivid and honest and the pathos is, for the most part, truly felt.

My sister and I were so enamored of this book when we were little. With that in mind, I'll let my four-star rating stand. However, I recently ran across a copy of the book and thought it might be fun to read it again after all these years. Nostalgia and all that, right? I was sickened by the over-the-top flowery writing. Gaaaaag me with syrupy sentiment! I was also surprised by all the gooey religious references, which I didn't remember AT ALL from my childhood readings of it. I don't object to religion in books. It's part of the world in which we live. But Johanna Spyri was ridiculously preachy and gushing in her religious passages.

Fortunately for me, revisiting the book cannot and did not spoil my happy memories with my sister, imagining we were Heidi of the Alps. :)

It has been forever since I have read this! I might just need to re-read it soon! :)

This was so cute and heartwarming, if a bit preachy, but it is a product of its time period in that way. But I really loved it overall!

About halfway around the book, I remembered reading it, in Turkish, years ago. Turkish translation of it was a bit different, if my memory serves me. For once, while there were mentions of God and how good He is etc, religious preaching was not as prominent.

I stumbled upon similar deviations at White Fang, which is one of my favourite books. Reading it in English was like hearing a memory from someone else's perspective. Familiar at core ,but WTF is he talking about at the same time. In Turkish version, the spotlight belonged to the wolf cub and his struggles. In English version, the author's shadow was all over it, fighting his own inner battle about God and his place in life. I love both versions but I don't believe they are the same book. Language and the culture behind it, have a lot of to do with the differences, but in my opinion, most of the time, translators become the second author. The end result is rarely the same book, even if it is telling the same story. Especially with books who has a lot of ideas hiding behind the tale.

So, this was a familiar but new book for me. It started as I hoped, giving me the warm feelings, being with a person who is inherently kind, gives you. All those cute moments with goats and playing... Despite of the stilting, formal language, everything was joyful.




Then it started preaching heavily. I am a religious person. Even though I'm not Christian, some of the main teachings are similar and I agreed with most concepts, the book was trying to teach. But these were not artfully infused into the story. I was beaten on the head with kindness and repetition. And everything in the story was to point us what we should do. After a while, I just couldn't find the same warmth in it. *and tbh, Heidi became so annoying with her perfect angelic-ness. my nephew is a demanding little shit, but I'd take him over Heidi anyday because let's face it; Heidi is bloody boring with her wheeee attitude towards every-fucking-thing. there is a line between being a bubbly-happy person who brings joy to others and being a bubbly-happy person who annoys the life out of others



I think I'll go watch the anime of Heidi, to see if it is as good as I remember. I need to shake this disappointment off of me.

O altă carte preferată din copilăria mea, atât de gingașă și dulce a fost. Tare mult am iubit-o pe Heidi, am petrecut și eu la rândul meu mult timp alături de bunicii mei și probabil, în mintea mea de copil, credeam că ne asemănăm.

"Nu e proastă deloc, murmură bătrânul pentru sine. Și de ce nu le mai vrei? o întrebă el cu glas tare.
Pentru că vreau să merg precum caprele cu picioarele lor iuți și subțiri."

I honestly enjoyed the movie more. The version that has Shirley Temple in it. If it would have been more like the movie, I probably would have went ahead and gave it a five-star rating.

A children classic which made me want to take a trip to the Alps, drink fresh milk and eat toasted goat cheese. Extra star for nostalgia too :)

¡Que libro tan reconfortante! Tengo que admitir que lloré un poquito, pero Heidi es tan inocente y su corazón tan puro que no puedes contener la emoción de leerla. Sueño con algún día conocer las delicias de sus amadas montañas, Los Alpes Suizos. ❤️