Heidi by Johanna Spyri

The first thing you notice about this edition of Heidi is the colour covers and inside covers. The front contains many features of the story of the book. There is the happy girl in the middle, the goats around her, the isolated hut near the top of the mountain and the flowers at the bottom. Inside the back cover there are pictures of 12 of the covers of books in the Oxford Children's Classics, including classics such as The Jungle Book and The Wizard of Oz. This is the sort of thing my almost-9-year-old daughter, being a veracious reader and recognising some of these famous books, loves.

As for the story this is the original English text of the book (as far as I know) which was published in 1881. Therefore it has old-fashioned sentence structures, which coupled with the long words and Swiss place names does not make it an easy task for my almost-9-year-old to read. There are no illustrations along the way either. On her own I think she would have persevered for a while before giving up. Therefore I read it with her over several bedtimes.

The story tells the tale of young orphan Heidi. Throughout the book she has such a cheerful nature, a "loving little heart", and brings joy to everyone she meets, whether that be blind Grandmother or Peter the goatherd. 

You meet her at the beginning as a 5-year-old being dumped by her aunt at Grandfather's as there is no-one else she can leave him with as she leaves for Frankfurt where she is to become a housekeeper. Here Heidi lives at the top of the mountain at one with the mountain meadows, nature, flowers, goats and fresh air. This is one of the things the book is famous for, the descriptions of the beautiful scenery - "lofty and silent rose the high mountain peaks above her, and below the whole broad valley full of quiet peace." 

Anyway aunt Dete eventually sends for Heidi to come to Frankfurt too where she is to be the companion of an invalid child called Clara. They make friends whilst Heidi also gets up the nose of the housekeeper there Fraulein Rottenmeier, innocently but hilariously at times. Unfortunately Heidi becomes homesick so the pair are split apart, until later when Clara comes to visit and the mountain air does her much good.

There is also a Godly message within the text too, with lessons about prayers and such like. 

My nearly-9-year-old daughter likes to have the last word. She says: "It is really good because you learn a few lessons about friendship and being truthful."

This edition published: 3 Sep 2015

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All Played Out by Pete Davies

Book review: “All Played Out” is the tale of Italia ’90, with a focus on England’s time there. It is interesting reading it now as in many ways despite not being that long ago it seems a different era. This was a time when the Premier League hadn’t begun, when Lineker had scored only thirty-odd goals for England, and when it was still just 2-points for a win. Also “these were the horror days of a nation all played out, a nation of riot and yobbery, a nation whose football was oafish and whose fans were louts.” Hooligans are far less an issue these days of course.

Along the way as the author follows England there is a lot of talk of the “fans” and the thuggish behaviour of a minority, always written about in the English press in an over-exaggerated manner, and the thuggish behaviour of the Italians too, plus their baton-wielding police. There is also a lot of talk about the English press, “the worst disciplined press in Western Europe”, because the author of the book was a fully signed-up member of the press pack with all the privileged access that brings, this access allowing him to conduct several interviews in the book with members of England’s playing squad, as well as the manager.

Some of these interviews are interesting retrospectively now, like how Lineker would “like to go into television”, and how Waddle thought Gazza with his personality could be a danger to himself when he was older. Also retrospectively it looks odd why Bobby Robson got so many negative headlines as England manager with his impressive record of a world cup quarter-final followed by a semi-final, but when the author maligns the press behaviour through much of the book you can probably begin to see why that happened.

The book also delves into football more technically than other offerings, with lots in particular on systems with 4-4-2 being said to be “all played out”. The author also covers all the wider football stuff going on at the World Cup in “Planet Football” with England players performing commercial activities such as casually modelling clothes or delivering Malaysian sound-bites, and some remarks on the official cheese of Italia ’90 with a multitude of tall, beautiful cheesewomen being present at various press events, never failing to impress the author, although the cheese less so as he never talks about tasting it.

The book covers more than just football though. For example it starts before the World Cup with a journey to Sardinia and Cagliari, England’s World Cup base for their group games, and delves into the history and culture of the place. Some of this works better than other bits, for example all the administration bits about waiting for fax machines to work etc. as he tries to obtain press tickets and the like could have been left out.

There is also a good writing style present too. On the unpredictable Gazza getting fouled: “Will he clout the guy? Or will he get up and shake his hand, pat his face and ruffle his hair, then embrace the referee?” And on the stadiums: “where the ordinary folk go to watch the men who’ve got gold in their shoes.”

Overall then an enjoyable read, and if you want to play a game whilst reading then see if you predict when the author is just about to use his favourite phrases “all played out” and “Planet Football”.

Published: 29 Oct 1990

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Nelly and the Quest for Captain Peabody by Roland Chambers

Book Review: "Nelly and the Quest for Captain Peabody" is a swash-buckling adventure of a little girl called Nelly. "The girl was called Nelly and the boat was called Nelly, just the same. It belonged to Captain Bones Peabody, of the Gentlemen's Exploratory Flotilla, who had gone off many years before with a group of gentlemen explorers to sail around the world and, as yet, had not returned. Nelly, the girl, was Captain Peabody's daughter."

So that is the premise, Nelly goes off on the seven seas with her pet turtle Columbus for adventures with "pirates, waterspouts, and so forth". There are some lovely descriptive scenes as Nelly goes on her voyage, like that of the quiet seas that her journey begins on, to the storms she later encounters, to the icebergs she comes across and so on. And she is a reflective character too, like when she is about to meet her doom when encountering a pirate ship she "thought how unfair it was that she was so young and had nobody at all to help her; that her parents had not cared for her better; that she had been forced to do all the cleaning as well as the household accounts". So as well as being independent she is a bit more grown up for a little girl which will appeal to girl readers themselves.

Along the way there are two-tone illustrations to add to the text. These also help to bring the book alive and two colours is better than black and white. My 8-year-old and 4-year-old daughters enjoyed this.

Published: 1 Oct 2015

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