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). ( )

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)? ( )

Martha goes to stay with Heidi, but things get difficult

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. ( )