Heidi by Johanna Spyri

Remember the Scholastic book sales in grade school? My memories of those book sales are bittersweet. I loved looking at the catalogs but I rarely could afford to buy anything from them. I always felt left out watching other kids receive their book orders. The fact that I loved reading made not being able to buy books from the Scholastic catalog hurt that much more.

There were two times when I was able to buy a book from the Scholastic and one of the two books I bought was Heidi. (The other was Little Women.) I still own the copy I bought in the third grade. Recently I purchased a set of Puffin editions of four classic children's books, one of which was the much loved classic, Heidi.

Heidi is the story of a little girl who brings joy to everyone she meets. It's a moral tale much like A Little Princess, another Puffin classic I recently read. At age 5 she is sent to live with her grandfather who is known as Uncle Alp by everyone in town. Years earlier Uncle Alp retreated to the mountain after losing his only child. Years living on the mountain top away from other people have led townspeople to view of him as a bogeyman of sorts. Tongues start wagging when Heidi's aunt drops off the orphaned Heidi at her grandfather's house. Everyone is worried about what will become of the poor child though none of them bother to check on her.

It turns out all the worry was for nothing. Contrary to what the townspeople think, Uncle Alp isn't all that bad. Even though it's been years he hasn't forgotten how to raise a child and immediately adjusts to being Heidi's caregiver. Aside from not attending school, Heidi thrives under her grandfather's care and the mountain air. Poor Heidi's life is turned upside down when her aunt arrives to take Heidi to Frankfurt to be a companion to another little girl. Heidi brightens up the lives of those in her new Frankfurt home, but her own light dims as she suffers from homesickness. For Heidi the best place on earth is on the mountain with her grandfather, the goats, and the many people that have become like family to her. Eventually she returns to her beloved mountain. Heidi's Frankfurt friends later discover for themselves just how wonderful the mountain is.

I loved this book as a child, as evident by the fact that I still own the copy I got in third grade. Reading this again decades later I'm happy to say it still stands up. It is perhaps heavy handed in moralizing department but it manages to make living on a cold mountain, drinking unpasteurized goat milk, and sleeping on hay sound heavenly. I bet there were a lot of little girls who, like me, dreamed of living on a mountain with their grandfather.