Heidi

September 2, 1996
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. Krupinski's (A New England Scrapbook) heroine mimics Temple, curls, button nose and all, though she lacks the actress's expressive smile and gestures. 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. 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. 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 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. Ages 5-9.

redheadperson22 - Warning! This review contains spoilers (not that it matters because there's absolutely no suspense in this book whatsoever). There's this little girl named Heidi, and both of her parents died when she was a baby. So went to go live with her aunt and her grandmother (on her mom's side). But then her grandmother dies. So, her aunt sends her to live with her grandfather (on her dad's side). Her grandfather lives in the mountains, and everyone who lives near him says he's really mean. But Heidi's aunt doesn't care and sends her to live with him anyway. Heidi then makes friends with a boy named Peter and his grandmother. After Heidi has lived with her grandfather for a few years, her aunt comes back. Then she basically takes her to live with some random rich people, so there daughter will have a companion. What I thought of it: This book was extremely boring. Heidi was an extremely irritating character. She basically prances around bringing joy and sunshine to everyone she comes in contact with for no apparent reason. It's like everyone loves her and no one knows why. Then, eventually, in addition to going around bringing joy to everyone, she starts going around and preaching to everyone. She's probably no more than 10 years old, and suddenly (after one talk with a girl's grandmamma) she knows everything about God. It's absolutely ridiculous. Also, she just magically learns how to read in two seconds. One minute she's completely illiterate, and the next, she's the world's best reader. What up with that? Not to mention the fact that she's a total jerk. Once some of her new friends come to visit her, she starts completely (and pretty much without a reason), ignoring her friend Peter. This causes Peter to become VERY angry. I mean some of his reactions were a bit extreme, but he definitely had a right to be mad. And Heidi just continues to prance around as if nothing has happened. I mean she never even addresses the fact that he's angry. Ever. But there was one thing that REALLY bothered me about this situation. When Heidi wanted Peter to do something, and he refused, she had the nerve to threaten him! And he listened! I really couldn't believe it. But for now, I'm going to take break from talking about Heidi, and talk about the other characters. Heidi's grandfather was completely inconsistent character. He was said to have been really mean, but he's never portrayed doing anything mean. As soon as Heidi shows up he pretty much welcomes her with open arms. Then when she leaves, he says he never wants to see her again. But then she comes back again, he's perfectly happy to see her. People are always saying how terrible he is, but we never see him do anything terrible. I mean the writer meant to write him as one of those "Don't judge a book by it's cover" character, but did a really bad job. I also didn't like the fact that Heidi's friend Klara just came to the mountains and magically got better. I mean the girl couldn't walk her entire life, and then she comes to the mountains and has the ability to walk by the end of the summer. Yet another unrealistic thing that happened in this book to add to the list. I could go on forever picking out the flaws in this book, but I think I'm going to go ahead and wrap this review up. I can't help but feel that this entire book was just completely dedicated to making Heidi seem like she was a perfect little angel, when in reality, she was a total brat. I mean they never addressed any of her flaws. But instead, they tried (and failed) to completely cover them all up. The morals of the story seemed to be: Trust in...