You may also want to be prepared to discuss the religious overtones to the story.
I believe this is the Charles Tritten translation which exudes warmth, joy and wonder, essential ingredients for a classic child’s book.ĭepending on how old your child is or if they have been exposed to other books or films set in “olden times” you may want to spend time discussing the notion of a houseful of servants and their treatment or the age at when school was deemed mandatory. Both children and adults will enjoy the flowing writing style. The plot, too, is severely condensed: "Many more good things happened after that day." The book succeeds as a portrayal of the joys of mountain life, but otherwise fails to do justice to Spyri's story of a girl's courage and persistence. Both Heidi's relationship with her grandfather and the idealized subplot about wheelchair-bound Klara's learning to walk are woodenly described little space is given to dialogue and even less to Heidi's emotions. The text emphasizes the sensual joys of fresh goat's milk, fir trees "with their piney scent," Heidi's sweet-smelling bed in her grandfather's hay loft, etc., but that is its only demonstrable strength. Similarly blank-faced characters contrast with Krupinski's serene, lushly idealized landscape paintings: the people seem like wax dolls, but the glowing blankets of flowers make the Alps heaven on earth. Krupinski's (A New England Scrapbook) heroine mimics Temple, curls, button nose and all, though she lacks the actress's expressive smile and gestures. This truncated retelling of orphan Heidi's simple life in the Swiss Alps and her sojourn in the big city seems almost as indebted to the Shirley Temple film as to Johanna Spyri's 1880 novel.
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