Sent to live with her reclusive grandfather in the Swiss Alps at five years old, Heidi fills the old man's isolated hut with sunlight. She plays among the goats, sleeps in the hay, and watches the mountains turn gold at sunset. The villagers whisper about the Alm-Uncle, but Heidi sees only a lonely man whose gruff exterior crumbles beneath her relentless affection. When she's abruptly taken away to live with a wealthy family in the city, Heidi withers. She cannot sleep without the wind in the pines, cannot breathe without the sharp Alpine air. Her homesickness becomes almost too much to bear. This is a story about what home means: not a place, but a feeling. About how a child who loves without condition can heal wounds a lifetime of isolation could not. Written in 1881, this is the book that taught generations of readers the world over that the simplest things matter most, and that sometimes the people who seem hardest to love need love the most.
