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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