The book Heidi was written by Johanna Spyri in 1880. It is about an orphan girl named Heidi who was brought by her aunt to live on the alm (or mountain) with her grandfather. Every day she goes out with her friend Peter who takes people’s goats up to the mountain so that they can graze. She is healthy and happy there. She also goes almost every day to see Peter’s blind grandmother and cares about her so much. One day her aunt Deet, who was the person who brought her to the alm, took Heidi away to Frankfort to live with a rich, disabled girl named Clara, who needs a friend to play with. Deet thinks that having Heidi live there will be better for her, even though Heidi doesn’t want to go. Life in Frankfort is hard. Heidi has to act a specific way and learn to read and write. Multiple times she tries to run away, but they always catch her. Heidi makes friends with Clara, and when Clara’s Grandmama comes to visit, Heidi loves her too. The Grandmama teaches Heidi about God and praying to him. At one point, Heidi sleepwalks and the servants in the house think that she is a ghost in her white nightgown. When she sleepwalks she is dreaming that she is back on the alm because she misses it so much. Eventually, Clara’s doctor notices that Heidi is homesick and tells Clara’s father, Herr Sesemann, who finally lets her return home. When she is there, she convinces her grandfather to go to church and teaches peter to read, but she misses her friend Clara. So, Clara and her Grandmother come to visit. I simply adore this book and think that it is underrated. I encourage anybody who enjoys classics to give this book a try. It is incredible. Thanks!
Heidi
By Johanna Spyri
| Interest Level | Reading Level | Reading A-Z | ATOS | Word Count |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grades 4 - 8 | Grade 9 | n/a | 8.2 | 89242 |
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Can Heidi find her way back to the purple mounatins of Switzerland to be with her grandfather again?
At the age of five, little orphan Heidi is sent to live with her grandfather in the Alps. Everyone in the village is afraid of him, but Heidi is fascinated by his long beard and bushy grey eyebrows. She loves her life in the mountains, playing in the sunshine and growing up amongst the goats and birds. But one terrible day, Heidi is collected by her aunt and is made to live with a new family in town. Heidi can't bear to be away from her grandfather; can she find a way back up the mountain, where she belongs?"
Book Reviews (22)
It was pretty good. I love the fact that the book was a story about a very generous girl and her grandfather
This book begins with Heidi's aunt taking her to live with her grandfather. As time flew quickly, her aunt returned and said that she found a place for her to live. She managed to trick Heidi and got away. They arrived at a location named Frankfurt. Soon, Heidi became homesick and started opening the front door in her sleep, frightening the family she was living with. After a while, a man noticed that Heidi had been acting strangely and asked what was wrong. Heidi explained that she missed the mountains and wanted to go home. The man knew right away that she was the one opening the door. They decided to send her back home the next day, where her heart yearned for. For a long time, I really liked this book. My favorite character is Heidi. She is so cute and funny!
I am reading this book project at school, every month we have a book project, this month, the genre is, realistic fiction. I am so happy my mother gave me this book. My favorite part is when Clara got to stand on two feet! She used to sit in a wheel chair.<3
It was great. 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
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its just........AMAZING
It was such a good book! I don't want to spoil it, but my favorite part was when she finally went back to where her heart yearned
This book is soooooo good, but it gets kind of confusing.
Warning! This review contains spoilers (not that it matters because there's absolutely no suspense in this book whatsoever). There's this little girl named Heidi, and both of her parents died when she was a baby. So went to go live with her aunt and her grandmother (on her mom's side). But then her grandmother dies. So, her aunt sends her to live with her grandfather (on her dad's side). Her grandfather lives in the mountains, and everyone who lives near him says he's really mean. But Heidi's aunt doesn't care and sends her to live with him anyway. Heidi then makes friends with a boy named Peter and his grandmother. After Heidi has lived with her grandfather for a few years, her aunt comes back. Then she basically takes her to live with some random rich people, so there daughter will have a companion. What I thought of it: This book was extremely boring. Heidi was an extremely irritating character. She basically prances around bringing joy and sunshine to everyone she comes in contact with for no apparent reason. It's like everyone loves her and no one knows why. Then, eventually, in addition to going around bringing joy to everyone, she starts going around and preaching to everyone. She's probably no more than 10 years old, and suddenly (after one talk with a girl's grandmamma) she knows everything about God. It's absolutely ridiculous. Also, she just magically learns how to read in two seconds. One minute she's completely illiterate, and the next, she's the world's best reader. What up with that? Not to mention the fact that she's a total jerk. Once some of her new friends come to visit her, she starts completely (and pretty much without a reason), ignoring her friend Peter. This causes Peter to become VERY angry. I mean some of his reactions were a bit extreme, but he definitely had a right to be mad. And Heidi just continues to prance around as if nothing has happened. I mean she never even addresses the fact that he's angry. Ever. But there was one thing that REALLY bothered me about this situation. When Heidi wanted Peter to do something, and he refused, she had the nerve to threaten him! And he listened! I really couldn't believe it. But for now, I'm going to take break from talking about Heidi, and talk about the other characters. Heidi's grandfather was completely inconsistent character. He was said to have been really mean, but he's never portrayed doing anything mean. As soon as Heidi shows up he pretty much welcomes her with open arms. Then when she leaves, he says he never wants to see her again. But then she comes back again, he's perfectly happy to see her. People are always saying how terrible he is, but we never see him do anything terrible. I mean the writer meant to write him as one of those "Don't judge a book by it's cover" character, but did a really bad job. I also didn't like the fact that Heidi's friend Klara just came to the mountains and magically got better. I mean the girl couldn't walk her entire life, and then she comes to the mountains and has the ability to walk by the end of the summer. Yet another unrealistic thing that happened in this book to add to the list. I could go on forever picking out the flaws in this book, but I think I'm going to go ahead and wrap this review up. I can't help but feel that this entire book was just completely dedicated to making Heidi seem like she was a perfect little angel, when in reality, she was a total brat. I mean they never addressed any of her flaws. But instead, they tried (and failed) to completely cover them all up. The morals of the story seemed to be: Trust in God and he will fix all your problems (which isn't a bad thing, but they could have portrayed that in a way that wasn't completely preachy. I mean they pretty much had the same conversation over and over with different people.), The mountains are a magical place and if you go there all your health issues will magically disappear, and Heidi is the best thing since sliced bread. You should love her with all her heart even though she doesn't really have any really good character traits. Overall, it was a very boring and preachy book, and I have no idea why this is a classic. On second thought, it being boring and preachy is probably the very reason it's a classic.
For a long time this book was my favorite book of all time. I couldn't help but fall in love with the little hyper and kind girl that lived in the Alps with her grandfather. The little crush between Peter and Heidi gust adds to the sweetness of the book.