Heidi – The orphan child Heidi first lives with her aunt Dete, but Dete would like to concentrate on her career. So she brings Heidi to her grandfather, a queer old man living in an alpine cottage far from the next village. Alm-Uncle is good-hearted but refuses to send Heidi to school; instead she goes to the pastures, together with Peter, a shepherd boy looking after the goats. Aunt Dete comes in again and takes Heidi to Frankfurt where she shall stay with Clara, the paralyzed daughter of a rich family, and learn something.
Thanks to the grandmother of Clara, Heidi learns to read but she is very lonesome and gets depressed by the gray anonymous city. Heidi becomes ill of homesickness, she starts to walk in her sleep. Miss Rottenmeier is alarmed, because she thinks that there are ghosts in the old house. Finally Clara’s father Herr Stresemann and the sympathetic doctor of the family decide to stay up till midnight and find out about the ghosts. When the doctor sees Heidi walking around in her sleep, he makes a diagnosis and sends her back to the alps.
Next summer, Clara visits Heidi there. They go to the pastures and Heidi shows Clara all the beauty of her world. Peter becomes terribly jealous, and destroys the wheelchair. Clara wants to see the flowers and is forced to walk – her desire is strong enough that she overcomes her handicap. Healings of body, spirit and soul in that healthy Alpine world – end well.
Author: Johanna Spyri;Â Reader: Jean VanderLaan
http://heidi-children-story-books.all-about-switzerland.info/
