Freedom to roam in the high Swiss Alps brings great happiness in this story of Heidi and her unusual childhood high up in the Swiss Alps. When Heidi’s parents die, she is sent to live with her grandfather high up in the mountains. Everyone in the village is frightened of grandfather but Heidi soon gets used to his gruff ways and loves his simple way of life tending the goats. Summer and winter, Heidi helps her grandfather and plays outdoors, sometimes with Peter who herds his goats nearby. When interfering adults try to make changes, including taking Heidi away from her beloved home in the mountains, Heidi soon shows the restoring and healing powers of her special childhood.
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BE CLASSICwith Heidi introduced by bestselling author Veera Hiranandani.
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 gray 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 made to live with a new family in the city. Heidi can't bear to be away from her grandfather. Can she find a way back up the mountain, where she belongs?
Johanna Louise Heusser, the fourth of six children of Meta Schweizer (1797-1876) and Johan Jakob Heusser (1783-1859), physician, was born on 12 June 1827 in the village of Herzil, nestled in the Alps of Switzerland. She went to school and was tutored at home, then studied languages and piano in Zürich. In 1852 she married lawyer Bernhard Spyri (1821-1884) with whom she'd have a son, Bernard Diethelm (1855-1884). The couple moved to Zürich to a home overlooking the lake where she wrote her first novel, A Leaf on Vrony's Grave, which was published in 1871.