Alas, I should not have re-read Heidi. I remembered it as a charming book about a darling girl who was brave and loving and a little heroine. This book might have been intentionally written for Shirley Temple. Heidi is a smarmy little caricature and the book as a whole is didactic and oh so pious. Not to mention the far-fetched plot and the medical miracle of a girl who has been unable to walk all her life now, at 12, able to climb to an alpine meadow.
Heidi was published in 1880 and is of its time and I did love it as a little girl. Heidi Grows Up and Heidi's Children were written rather later by an Englishman I think.
My dislike of Heidi has nothing to do with her pre-empting a football game in 1968 though I understand there are those who will never forgive her or Michael Redgrave or Maximillian Schell.
2012 No 19
I had the same experience with the book Pollyanna. Smarmy, pious and didactic. Nothing at all like Hayley Mills!
Posted by: Boots Canavan | Sunday, February 05, 2012 at 11:52 AM
Oh, dear. Makes me nervous about Black Beauty and Albert Payson Terhune.
Posted by: Mary | Sunday, February 05, 2012 at 01:13 PM