Heidi

It is fair to say that 'Heidi' is a phenomenon. The novel about a five-year-
old girl living with her grandfather in the Swiss Alps has been on the high
school reading list of millions of children. More than 50 million copies of
the book have been shifted since it was published. Author Johanna Spyri
rightly calls it "a book for children and those who love children". 'Heidi'
finds herself orphaned and living with her bad-tempered grandfather, who has
fallen out with his neighbours and also refuses to send Heidi to school. Her
kindness gradually melts her granddad's heart, but she is then taken away to
be a companion for a wheelchair-bound girl named Klara, whose home features
the monstrous bully of a housekeeper, Fraulein Rottenmeier. The strictness
crushes Heidi's spirit and she longs to return to her grandfather. Will this
beautiful story of redemption and friendship have a happy ending? If you like
'Anne of Green Gables' by Lucy Maud Montgomery, you will love 'Heidi'. Johanna
Louise Spyri (1827-1901) was a Swiss novelist, known largely for her
children’s books. After marrying a lawyer and moving to Zurich, Spyri began to
write about life in the countryside, where she had been brought up. Her first
story, 'A Leaf on Vrony's Grave', described a woman's life of domestic
violence. Her breakthrough novel was 'Heidi', which she wrote in four weeks.
It tells the story of a young girl being raised in the Alps by her
grandfather. Tragedy struck in 1884, when Spyri's husband and only child, both
called Bernhard, died. She dedicated the rest of her life to charitable works
and wrote 50 more stories. Some of her other novels include 'The Story of
Rico', 'Veronica and Other Friends', 'Cornelli', and 'Little Miss
Grasshopper'.