Afbeelding van de auteur.

Charles TrittenBesprekingen

Auteur van Heidi Grows Up

8+ Werken 1,719 Leden 15 Besprekingen

Besprekingen

Toon 14 van 14
The snobby girls at the fashionable boarding school ridicule Heidi's "peasant" ways and laugh at her. But Heidi's spirits never dampen for long, because she lives for her dream to finish her studies and return to her own village in the Swiss Alps as a school teacher.
 
Gemarkeerd
PlumfieldCH | 9 andere besprekingen | Sep 22, 2023 |
Years ago, I held back from checking out Heidi Grows Up. I wasn't too keen on the idea of reading anything about Heidi that wasn't written by Johanna Spyri, the author who originated the classic character.

Even so, I wound up liking that sequel written by Spyri's translator, Charles Tritten. I didn't enjoy it as much as Spyri's novel Heidi, but Tritten's sequel was still a delightful read for me, in the spirit of old-fashioned children's fiction.

In regard to this third book, I finally satisfied my curiosity to see Tritten's depiction of Heidi as a wife and mother. She's the same giving person but more mature, one who's gradually been shaped by trials along with joys. My favorite quote from Heidi the woman:

"We may learn through the mistakes of others. We don't always need to wait until we have hurt someone dear to us."

Yet, even as the author declares in the introduction that since Heidi's wedding day in the previous book, she has even happier days going forward...this isn't that happy of a story. Yes, I'm glad that Heidi's marriage and family life isn't depicted as a fairy tale with nary a care or disagreement ever after. But Heidi's unofficial adoptive daughter, Marta (who's actually the principal character of this story), isn't a warm, inviting, inspiring light as young Heidi was.

Both of them had hard starts in life, but in Marta's case, she's prone to throw tantrums. Her behavior worsens after she suffers an additional great loss in this book, and much of her experience is on the downbeat side. As for her more pleasant times, they felt cursory and fell fairly flat to me.

Heidi's birth children, the twins, grow from babies to tots with relatively little effect on the plot for most of the book, and my mild interest in the story declined. The edition I read was 240 pages; I nearly gave up after 100.

These days, I hardly ever "push through" novels I'm not enjoying. However, given my long history with Heidi and her people, it was worth it for me to hang on in this case, to eventually find out a critical secret belonging to Heidi's beloved grandfather. Reading about him in this book was also rather sad, but even after the previous stories, he's still in need of some redemption here. His character gets that redemption at last—in a bittersweet way.

I hear tell that Tritten wrote two more books about Heidi and/or her family, one of which may have been translated into English only recently. But for the foreseeable future, I'm all right with letting my reading about Heidi end here.

That is, unless I ever reread Spyri's novel and maybe the second book again at some point. And the 1993 Harmony Gold television miniseries about young Heidi is still one of my favorite stories to watch again and again (via DVD).
 
Gemarkeerd
NadineC.Keels | 4 andere besprekingen | Jan 2, 2023 |
I did not own the book Heidi when I was young. I owned this instead - Heidi Grows Up. Not as good. I used to pick it up, wish it was Heidi, but start trying to read it anyway. If I had owned Heidi, I might have fonder memories of this book, but I didn't own Heidi so I do not.
 
Gemarkeerd
Chica3000 | 9 andere besprekingen | Dec 11, 2020 |
This was another of my mother's great ability to buy the second book in a series. I liked this one a lot though and I kept looking for the orifinal Heidi. When I finally read Heidi it was a bit of a let down. Not from any problem wirth the book itsweld. I juat had built iir up so much that anything would have had difficulty matching my expectations. As an adult though I see the same medicine doing amazing healing as in the Secret Garden (although there is less British exceptionalism in Heidi... for obvious reasons). Mostly just my hang-up. Read both and enjoy. I didn't know about the continued series so 'all have to fit them in so I can lwearn moerw of Heidi.
 
Gemarkeerd
Smsw | 9 andere besprekingen | Oct 20, 2020 |
In the story, first Heidi agrees to go away form her beloved mountains to boarding school so that she can be educated away from the cruel schoolmaster in Dorfli and so that she can develop her musical abilities with violin lessons from a professional teacher. Heidi manages to win the affections of almost all of the girls in her new school, just as in the original Heidi, she wins over Clara and her father and all of the Sesemann household in Frankfurt. But again just as in the original, Heidi misses her grandfather and the Alps, and in the summer she and a friend go back to spend some time in the mountains that are truly Heidi’s “natural habitat.”
 
Gemarkeerd
LynneQuan | 9 andere besprekingen | Sep 27, 2017 |
The story takes place a year or so after Heidi’s marriage to Peter, the goatherd. Heidi is expecting their first child. Jamy, Heidi’s friend from boarding school, who now teaches at the local schoolhouse, has received a letter from her ten-year-old sister, Marta, begging to come visit. Can Heidi handle a baby and a desperate ten year old in addition to her husband mother-in-law and the Alm-Uncle (her grandfather)?
 
Gemarkeerd
LynneQuan | 4 andere besprekingen | Sep 27, 2017 |
Perhaps not quite as good as the original Heidi but still excellent.½
 
Gemarkeerd
gypsysmom | 9 andere besprekingen | Aug 11, 2017 |
I will never reread this because I would probably hate it, but GOD did I love this story when I was a kid. I read it before I read the first Heidi book, and I think that ruined my enjoyment of the first. I adore this book, even though it's basically fanfiction, and I love finding out what happened to all the characters I loved the first time round. I laughed, I cried, I cheered when Peter and Heidi finally get married. It's not great writing, but I don't even care.
1 stem
Gemarkeerd
thebookmagpie | 9 andere besprekingen | Aug 7, 2016 |
I will never reread this because I would probably hate it, but GOD did I love this story when I was a kid. I read it before I read the first Heidi book, and I think that ruined my enjoyment of the first. I adore this book, even though it's basically fanfiction, and I love finding out what happened to all the characters I loved the first time round. I laughed, I cried, I cheered when Peter and Heidi finally get married. It's not great writing, but I don't even care.
 
Gemarkeerd
hoegbottom | 9 andere besprekingen | Jan 30, 2016 |
I will never reread this because I would probably hate it, but GOD did I love this story when I was a kid. I read it before I read the first Heidi book, and I think that ruined my enjoyment of the first. I adore this book, even though it's basically fanfiction, and I love finding out what happened to all the characters I loved the first time round. I laughed, I cried, I cheered when Peter and Heidi finally get married. It's not great writing, but I don't even care.
 
Gemarkeerd
hoegbottom | 9 andere besprekingen | Jan 30, 2016 |
Martha goes to stay with Heidi, but things get difficult
 
Gemarkeerd
IHchildren | 4 andere besprekingen | Sep 21, 2013 |
I read this many years ago as a child, and was glad to find out what had happened to my beloved Heidi. It was no match for Spyri's book, which was the most read book of my childhood, but I did enjoy it. I have always wondered if anyone else read this.½
1 stem
Gemarkeerd
booklady2031 | 4 andere besprekingen | Nov 21, 2009 |
does feel like Heidi. has references here and there to the original, as little reminders and (i suppose) in case someone hasn't read the original. no one is irredeemably evil, people and goats are very sweet, the alpine venue is healing, bracing, and breathtaking, and both food and mountain-dwellers are simple, healthful, and inherently good. a quick read for a grown-up.
2 stem
Gemarkeerd
lidaskoteina | 9 andere besprekingen | Jul 13, 2009 |
still to read dont know how i can openthis book here its very complicated
1 stem |
Gemarkeerd
michallwyn | 9 andere besprekingen | Jun 2, 2009 |
Toon 14 van 14