Heidis Lehr- Und Wanderjahre
1880
Heidis Lehr- Und Wanderjahre
1880
The story of Heidi begins on a mountain path, a five-year-old climbing toward a grandfather everyone in the village fears. The Alm-Öhi lives alone in his chalet, a man dismissed as bitter and reclusive. But Heidi sees something else entirely: the way sunlight moves across the meadows, the company of goats and the goatherd Peter, the freedom of sleeping under stars. Within a year, she has cracked open his hardened heart and reminded him what it means to love. Then Heidi is ripped away. Sent to Frankfurt to serve a wealthy household, she finds herself trapped in a sterile city apartment, separated from everything that made her whole. What follows is a story about what truly makes a child whole, and the quiet power of joy to transform even the most closed-off hearts. Spyri understood something essential: that happiness is not found in comfort or wealth, but in the wild and the loved.
Editions
X-Ray
“I want to go about like the light-footed goats.””
— Johanna Spyri
“I'll always say my prayers... and if God doesn't answer them at once I shall know it's because He's planning something better for me.””
— Johanna Spyri
“God certainly knows of some happiness for us which He is going to bring out of the trouble, only we must have patience and not run away. And then all at once something happens and we see clearly ourselves that God has had some good thought in His mind all along; but because we cannot see things beforehand, and only know how dreadfully miserable we are, we think it is always going to be so.””
— Johanna Spyri
“Flowers are made to bloom in the sun and not to be shut up in an apron.””
— Johanna Spyri
“God is good to all of us. He knows what we need better than we do. And just because he thinks it is better not to give you what you want right now doesn't mean he isn't answering you. You shall have what you ask for but not until the right time comes.””
— Johanna Spyri
“We must never forget to pray, and to ask God to remember us when He is arranging things, so that we too may feel safe and have no anxiety about what is going to happen.””
— Johanna Spyri
“If you have a sorrow that you cannot tell to anyone, you can go to our Father in Heaven.””
— Johanna Spyri
“The happiest of all things is when an old friend comes and greets us as in former times; the heart is comforted with the assurance that some day everything that we have loved will be given back””
— Johanna Spyri
“Let's enjoy the beautiful things we can see, my dear, and not think about those we cannot.””
— Johanna Spyri
