Heidi

约翰娜·斯比丽 / 黄霄翎Shanghai Translation Publishing House · ChinaDec 2024

Rating 4.4
Word count
127K words
Chapters
26
ISBN
9787532794751

Tags

Foreign Literature GirlhoodGrandparent LoveIntergenerational FriendshipInnocence and KindnessNature HealingHeartwarming NarrativeFilm AdaptationPastoral RomanceAlpsChild's Perspective

Summary

Heidi (comprising the two parts published in 1880 and 1881, Heidi's Years of Learning and Travel and Heidi Makes Use of What She Has Learned) has to date been translated into more than fifty languages and adapted into numerous films, television series, and animated works.

The book tells the story of the young protagonist Heidi's growth. Heidi is an innocent, lively, simple, and kind little girl who loves nature and life. When she is very small, her aunt takes her up the mountain to live with her grandfather, a reclusive and misanthropic man. On the mountain, Heidi gradually wins over her grandfather with her love and innocence, helping him to accept the people around him once more. At the same time, Heidi's kindness and optimism influence those around her, including the blind grandmother, the school-averse Peter, and Clara, who sits in a wheelchair all day. The story is full of warmth and inspirational elements, showing the kind and beautiful side of human nature while conveying profound themes of love, courage, and hope.

Editor's review

Heidi is a classic coming-of-age novel that has endured for over a century. This 2024 Shanghai Translation Publishing House edition, translated by Huang Xiaoling, includes both complete stories published in 1880 and 1881. Its value lies not in intricate plotting but in the extremely simple way it shows how a child changes the world around her through innate goodness: the reclusive grandfather, the blind grandmother, the school-averse Peter, and wheelchair-bound Clara all reopen themselves to life under Heidi's influence. The novel interweaves the natural atmosphere of the Alps closely with the unfolding of the characters' inner lives; the mountain landscape is not merely background but a participant in healing and growth. For today's readers, its strengths are brisk pacing and genuine emotion, with no preachy tone, yet it conveys love, courage, and hope through everyday details. It is suitable as an introductory classic for parent-child reading or for young readers reading independently, and also for adults to reread when weary, to feel that unpolished warmth. The translation is fluent and suited to readers seeking a reliable complete Chinese edition.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. For parent-child reading, read aloud in sections and after each chapter talk about the specific ways Heidi affects the people around her.
  2. Young readers can read Part One first, then Part Two, noting how Heidi changes as she moves from the mountain to the city and back.
  3. Adult readers might slow down and read the mountain descriptions alongside the characters' states of mind to appreciate nature's healing role.

About the publisher

Shanghai Translation Publishing House China · Founded in 1978

Shanghai Translation Publishing House is a Chinese publisher oriented mainly toward translation and publishing. Its publications cover foreign literature, world classics and classic works, as well as social culture, folk literature and classical poetry. The database contains 2,618 titles, including Never Let Me Go, Les Misérables (2 volumes), Don Quixote (illustrated collector's edition), The Complete Comedies of Molière (4 volumes), The Complete Novels of Kafka (3 volumes), The Collected Works of Dostoevsky (9-volume set), Reason and Persons, and Oedipus Rex (Translation Classics). Its author resources include foreign writers such as Kazuo Ishiguro, Victor Hugo, Cervantes and Molière, as well as translators such as Zheng Kelu, Sun Jiameng, Li Jianwu and Zhang Kun. The publisher has brands such as "Translation Classics Selections" and "Translation Documentary," and emphasizes translated works in foreign literature and the humanities and social sciences, while also publishing bilingual dictionaries and foreign-language educational books. Public information is limited; the above is based on the book information in the database.

Contents

  1. 版权信息
  2. 世界上的许多奇迹，都因爱而生
  3. 译者的话
  4. 第一章 上山
  5. 第二章 爷爷家
  6. 第三章 牧场
  7. 第四章 婆婆家
  8. 第五章 两拨客人
  9. 第六章 新生活
  10. 第七章 罗腾迈尔女士这天可不省心
  11. 第八章 赛斯曼家乱套了
  12. 第九章 赛斯曼先生在家听到了新鲜事儿
  13. 第十章 奶奶
  14. 第十一章 海蒂心智渐开，身体却弱了
  15. 第十二章 赛斯曼家闹鬼了
  16. 第十三章 夏日傍晚上山回家
  17. 第十四章 礼拜天的钟声
  18. 第十五章 准备上山
  19. 第十六章 高山牧场来客了
  20. 第十七章 报答
  21. 第十八章 不点儿村的冬天
  22. 第十九章 漫长的冬日
  23. 第二十章 远方的朋友行动起来了
  24. 第二十一章 山上的故事
  25. 第二十二章 事情的发展谁也没想到
  26. 第二十三章 暂别是为了长聚

FAQ

Is this a complete story or an abridged edition? This edition includes both complete parts of Heidi, namely Heidi's Years of Learning and Travel published in 1880 and Heidi Makes Use of What She Has Learned published in 1881. It is not an abridgment or simplified version, so readers can follow the complete arc of growth.
What age is Heidi suitable for? The language is plain and the chapters are short, so upper-elementary readers can read it independently; younger children are better suited to having a parent read aloud or read along. The book touches on separation and illness, which can be discussed naturally during parent-child reading.
If I haven't seen the film or TV adaptations, will I have trouble reading the original directly? No. The original narrative is clear, with Heidi's experiences as the main thread, and the relationships are introduced naturally as the plot unfolds, so no prior knowledge is needed. Adaptations often simplify or change the plot; reading the original directly gives a fuller sense of the complete growth process.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

约翰娜·斯比丽 Author

Johanna Spyri is a writer known for children's literature, and her representative work Heidi has circulated widely around the world. The collection here includes three of her works—Heidi (Yilin Classics Audiobook Edition), Heidi, and Heidi and Grandpa—which present different Chinese-language editions of the same classic. Because public information is limited, details of her life are difficult to set out at length; yet the works themselves show that her writing takes the natural scenery of the Alpine countryside and children's innocent growth as its backdrop, with a warm and plain tone that emphasizes the emotional bonds between people and their environment and between one another. Heidi has long been classified under world classics and foreign literature, loved by generations of readers and adapted for film and television many times, which shows its enduring artistic vitality.

黄霄翎 Author

Huang Xiaoling is an author about whom limited public information is available. Her work centers on foreign literature and humanistic essays. Four of her titles are included in the collection: the correspondence between Hermann Hesse and Thomas Mann, Heidi, Hesse's Fairy Tales (from the Hesse collection), and Happiness. These span essay collections, foreign literature, and inspirational writing. Her work combines literary translation with essay writing: she has taken part in translating important German-language texts by writers such as Hesse and Thomas Mann, while also engaging with classic coming-of-age stories like Heidi and with reflections on happiness. Her style tends toward the plain and delicate, building bridges between classic works and everyday reading. Because biographical details remain incomplete, this profile can only sketch her general direction from the available works, with more background to be added later.