GRANDMA’S TREASURES

JOHANNA SPYRI

Heidi is a girl who has been raised by her aunt Dete in Maienfeld, Switzerland after the early deaths of her parents. However Dete would like to concentrate on her career. So she brings Heidi to her grandfather (Alm-Uncle) Alm-Uncle is good-hearted but mistrusts anybody and wants to keep the child from all evils of the world. So he refuses to send Heidi to school; instead she goes to the pastures, together with Peter, a shepherd boy looking after the goats. Heidi, is happy and healthy, leading a carefree life with her grandfather, her new friend, Peter, and the goats on the Alm. But Heidi's happiness is short-lived when she is sent to stay with a rich city family as a companion for a sick girl, Clara. Although she grows fond of the older girl, Heidi is terribly homesick.Heidi becomes ill of homesickness, she starts to walk in her sleep. When the doctor sees Heidi walking around in her sleep, he finds the right diagnosis and sends her back to the alps.

HEIDI

Johanna Spyri

Heidi

cedar winslow

Angelo Rinaldi

Beverly Cleary

Heidi was first published in 1880. A classic tale of childhood joys and friendships, it has delighted and inspired generations of children.

i think this is the first long novel i've ever read when i was a child. honestly, i've forgotten most of its content, but the feeling of reading it the first time still remains after years. was it peter the one who couldn't read and didn't go to school? did i just feel so engaged with hedi's friendship with him? perhaps so. i also remember a little the goat cheese and the pine trees. i was just a child living in a secluded village, and heidi brought a feeling of wonder to it. heidi enabled me to understand that children have thoughts, too. it made me able to navigate my world through a whole new window. when i saw pine trees for the first time passing through a road called cadas pangeran, it became more special as heidi made them so. years later when i moved to the city, i found my heidi again with its folded and rusty cover. the sleepwalking and the longing to go home felt more real than ever. ah... i couldn't help but write a review that is perhaps too much about me, but this book is just very dear to me! i lost my heidi, the one with cartoonized cover. a girl with a straw hat on her head and freckles on her cheeks, sitting on lush grasses with the alps behind. i think i once wished my name was heidi, hahaha.

🐿️

A Swiss orphan is heartbroken when she must leave her beloved grandfather and their happy home in the mountains to go to school and to care for an invalid girl in the city.

𝚕𝚒𝚕𝚢

5 ★ - (adored, absolute favorite)


CWs or things that caught my attention: Mentions/descriptions of deceased parents, illness, sleepwalking,

Orphaned Heidi lives with her gruff but caring grandfather on the side of Swiss mountain, where she befriends young Peter the goat-herd. She leads an idyllic life, until she is forced to leave the mountain she has always known to go and live with a sickly girl in the city. Will Heidi ever see her grandfather again? A classic tale of a young girl's coming-of-age, of friendship, and familial love.


did not remember the heavy religious themes but fun times

Malia

Heidi (Unabridged Classics)

Ayesha ahmed

I have never read the book when I was a child or watched the movie. It's my first time to give a children's classic a try since I was a child, and it was absolutely entertaining! It made me feel very nostalgic although I haven't ever come across this story. 
Heidi, an orphan, who lives with her grandfather in the mountains is taken away to live in the city with a wealthy family to keep their child entertained. Her inexperience was what made this part somewhat funny, cute and sad all at the same time. Soon enough, Heidi returns back to her home, the mountains. 
This book could be read more than once as it is very cheering and hopeful. It should be read to children more for them to learn simplicity, kindness and faith.

Senali Senanayake 

Heidi by Johanna Spyri. 🌱📖️🌨️

This is my first read in December. 🎄No wonder that most of you have read Heidi as kids, feeling the cold breezes of the Swiss mountains.🌨️ So this was my second reading of Heidi. One as a little girl. And this time as a 19 year old young lady. 😂😌

First of all it is the lively backdrop of the story which always steals my heart into it. 🏔🌲🐐The narrator never misses  a chance to make her readers live in the plot as if they are close people to our little center focus ; Heidi. 

Why I envy Heidi. 😐

🐥Her mind is free and fiest and unaware of the evil around her.
🐥She's got a cool grandpa. 😎 (Mine is cool too) 
🐥Her home is my idol place of living.
🐥How she becomes happy with the tiniest thing she has. 

Peter the goat boy. 👦

I want to talk about Peter cuz in most of my favorite books , there's a character named Peter to whom my attention  is spontaneously magnetized to.😂 Have you got any specific name which immediately catches your eye of a reader ? 😂🥲

This time I felt the deeper themes scrutinized by the writer which I did not find as a child. The little girl's empathetic, humanely attitudes towards the world which substantially attacks the immatured behaviors of adults throughout the plot is my most prefered theme of the novel.❤️🤭🌨️

meh. this book was recommended because of my deep love of anne of green gables but it fell flat. quite enjoyable in a small dose but when i hit the midpoint of the book i had to drag myself through it

Barbara Williford

Heidi is an orphaned child of a tender age who is forced upon what society views as a grumpy, dangerous grandfather. With Heidi’s tender heart and free spirit she soon has everyone on the Swiss mountain, including her grandfather, falling in love with her and changing their lives. Suddenly, she is yanked from this home and the people she loves and sent away to a stranger’s home in Frankfurt. This change and journey will continue to change so many lives for the good and the bad but God has his own plans and journey for everyone involved. A wonderful, heart felt book.

Hannah Howell

Flavia Louise

3.5 stars
Such a nicely told story. I listened to this and I was just genuinely enjoying it all the way through.

Samiha Tasnim

A childhood favourite...I loved reading it again.

Hannah

I did not expect to love this book, if I'm being honest it was a complete cover buy, I just want the complete set of puffin in bloom editions and had no intention of actually reading any of the books except maybe Little Women. But then realised the ridiculousness of this and decided to pick up Heidi. 
I am so glad I did! Yes it's preachy but more than that it's a story about a little girl who just loves to be outside and with her grandad and the people she loves. Heidi is the least selfish little girl, thinking always of how she can help others even when it's hurting her. 
The characters are all pretty likeable, only Rottenmeier can really be thought of as a bad egg. 
The setting was wonderful and I could see in my mind so well the story as it played out. 
I was genuinely concerned for Heidi and many of her elderly companions throughout parts in this book but it true children's classic style, the happy ending is there and all the sweeter for the journey. 
A truly heartwarming tale and one I wish I had read as a young girl.

Alexis 

3/5 stars

This was an interesting read. It was alright, I did enjoy it.

Diana 

Romanzo indimenticabile per la leggerezza delle descrizioni. 
È moralistico, vi sono elementi giudaico-cristiani riscontrabili qui come in altri romanzi ''classici'' della adolescenza,  Pollyanna ad esempio. Ciò non deve stupire: è stato scritto da una mano occidentale sul finire del XIX secolo per un pubblico giovanile, per l'educazione di questi e con l'obiettivo di suggerire utili riflessioni ai pedagoghi.

Incipit,  Al piede d'una fila di monti dalle cime frastagliate che guardano minacciose giù verso la valle dell'Alto Reno, c'è un paese come in Svizzera ce ne sono tanti: con la chiesa dal campanile a punta e la scuola, il mulino, il fabbro e il calzolaio.

Il rapporto uomo-ambiente, la vita di montagna e la relezione di amicizia tra coetanei sono gli aspetti più rilevanti del romanzo.

Mireia 

La cosa que me pasa con esta historia es que desde pequeña vi la serie de dibujos animados y si no recuerdo mal había una película, y nunca me llego a emocionar per se. Pero al leer el libro me ha transmitido mucha ternura y lo he disfrutado más de lo que pensaba, así que eso que me llevo.

Jane Krauss

I remember my mum reading this to me as a child, and it holds such a nostalgic place in my heart. It's a story of its time. Leaving a child with a hermit on a mountain would never fly in 2021, and neither would allow a male doctor to be alone with a venerable young girl. I know that the writing is innocent, but in the context of 2021, it seems a little off. Furthermore, the writing style is quite old and uses words like to-morrow. 

All in all, I enjoyed the book for nostalgic reasons, but I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. It's suitable for chapter by chapter reading to children, but I wouldn't reread it as an adult.

Manon van Heumen

This was just wonderful! The vivid descriptions, the joyous Heidi: I could have stayed in this book forever!

Lisa Beasley

I do still enjoy this story but perhaps some of the shine has worn away since I was a kid. Will always like reading it but perhaps i wont get back the love I had for it when I was younger.

Kate

A gentle, heartwarming children's story that made me want to move to the Swiss Alps, sleep in a bed of hay and live at one with the goats. I found the first half of this book much more enjoyable than the last, as I felt it became somewhat preachy and suddenly heavy on religious sentiments (which just isn't my thing) but other than that, I felt very nostalgic for the animated movie I grew up with (and have now purchased for £0.49 on Amazon.) I would also highly recommend Puffin's 2019 audiobook, which was beautifully narrated by Gemma Whelan.

HEIDI

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