Heidi

Who is Heidi?

Heidi is a cheerful orphan girl with dark curls who goes to live with her grandfather high in the Swiss Alps, where she loves the goats, the wildflowers and the glowing sunset peaks. When she is taken to the city of Frankfurt, she makes a dear friend in Clara but misses her mountain terribly. Wherever she goes, Heidi’s warm heart brings people closer together.

Heidi is a character in Heidi, the 1881 novel by Johanna Spyri, retold for ages 6–9 by Sean Lee.

What is Heidi like?

• cheerful
• loving
• curious

Heidi’s story

Heidi’s parents have both died, and her aunt Dete first looks after her. When Heidi is five, Dete carries her up the mountain to the grandfather, the gruff man the village calls Alm-Uncle. Heidi is not afraid of him. She sleeps on a hay bed, drinks goat’s milk and spends her days with Peter and the goats.

Three years on, Dete returns, saying Heidi is eight and has never learned to read, and takes her to Frankfurt as a companion for Clara. Heidi cannot learn her letters at first, upsets Fräulein Rottenmeier and grows so homesick that she sleepwalks and stops eating. All the while she saves soft white rolls for Peter’s blind grandmother.

The doctor sends her home. On the Alm she brings the rolls to grandmother, reads her hymns, and reads the shepherd story to her grandfather, who is so moved that he goes to church and rejoins the village. The next summer she welcomes Clara and helps her take her first steps. At the end, Heidi stays on the mountain among the people she loves.

A moment to remember

Heidi saves soft white rolls for Peter’s grandmother and, back on the mountain, places a whole basket of them in the old woman’s lap.

Family and friends

• Alm-Uncle: grandfather
• Peter: friend and goatherd
• Clara Sesemann: best friend in Frankfurt
• Peter’s Grandmother: dear old friend
• Doctor Classen: kind doctor