"Yes we can! We can do *anything*! Anything if we just turn it over to God and ask his will be done!"
Imagine these words being said in a high childlike voice, a gentle sweet, loving and altruistic voice... and there you have Heidi by Johanna Spyri.
This book has been on my shelf for years, bought in my first days of homeschooling as I was collecting classics from used book stores. I tried it a couple of times, but couldn't get into the somewhat archaic but simple story.
Of course it doesn't help that my biggest impression of Heidi is the story my dh tells me from his teen days in New York. Some gigantic football game playoff was happening with the Giants or Jets- maybe the Superbowl? It was a tense game-winning moment and the local network messed up suddenly switched from gameplay to the Heidi movie.
"Grandfather! Grandfather!" and little Heidi ran down the mountain with the goats..
ARGH!!!! was the cry from living rooms all over the metropolitan New York area as beer cans hit the TV screens..
lol
What hooked me was the audio version. (note: a voice or two got a bit shrill, but hang in there it is worth it...)
Heidi is goodness. She is put in difficult situations with difficult people but her love and kindness prevails and wins others over. At first it may seem a bit corny, but after reading you see that it is literature, because the themes and underlying truths are there. Our faith is all over, in between the lines and lived out.
As Julie Bogart says about literature:
"Literature (versus fiction) is said to be those novels that have layers to be investigated. Fiction is simply any novel that tells a story."
Heidi is then literature.
She shows others, children and adults, literally how to trust God. I learned (again) from her what to do when things go wrong, when I don't feel like God is answering my prayers. As Heidi says, God knows what we need when we need it and this is shown over and over in her world.
This is a perfect read aloud for families and I highly recommend it!
Yes, this is going on the list of "give it a try" (try hard!) books for my big strong boys.
"What did you do this summer?"
I read Heidi, replied the 6ft tall teen boy. :-) We are never too big for lessons like these.
3 comments:
I read Heidi as a child - perhaps I should re-read it? And I don't think any of my boys have ever read it!!!
I love the quote from Julie on literature vs fiction....
Hmmm... do you suppose there is a movie version that lives up to the text?
I loved this as an audio book, we listened to it a couple of years ago. There is a good movie version, I'll have to check with the kids to see which one they liked.
Like you said Cindy, it really is a perfect read aloud for families
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