Heidi

What follows is a life of open sky and toasted cheese, of Peter and the goats, and of Peter's blind grandmother, whose dreary days brighten whenever Heidi appears. Then the aunt returns and carries Heidi off to Frankfurt, to a grand house of strict rules, to the invalid Clara who is delighted by her, and to the redoubtable Miss Rottenmeier, whose sense of propriety cannot survive a pocketful of kittens. Amid the city's sea of chimneys and rooftops, Heidi grows quietly, achingly homesick. "I must see the sun again when he says good night to the mountains," she says.

Johanna Spyri writes tenderly and without a lecture in sight, letting small things carry the weight — wilted flowers, a motherless goat, a hoarded stack of bread rolls. The comedy is gentle, the faith plainspoken, the longing real, and the whole book seems to hold its breath around the grandfather's wish for her: "I want her to be free and happy as a bird!"

Here is a story about what a child's guileless heart can do to a hardened man, a lonely house, a friendship, and about how far the memory of one bright mountain can reach. Come and climb.