The Heidi by Johanna Spyri website is ten years old this year! Can you believe it? Me, neither! To celebrate, I just fixed (or removed) all the broken links. But that's not much of a celebration, is it? That falls more into "site maintenance I should do more often." But I will also be adding some more substantive content to the site...it needs some freshening up! How do YOU think we should celebrate ten years? Email me at suziebeezie#@earthlink.net (remove the # sign first) with your ideas. Please use a subject title of "Heidi" so your email doesn't accidentally go into my spam pile. :)
Hi! We have a new Heidi by Johanna Spyri bookstore. Hooray! Click on the bookstore link at right to check it out. The bookstore will open in a new window.
Please feel free to email me at suziebeezie#@earthlink.net (remove the # first) with any relevant Johanna Spyri or Heidi links you'd like added to the site. You can also report broken links. Regretfully, I can't tell you how much your edition of Heidi is worth (but you might check eBay or Alibris) or where to find Heidi merchandise, and I cannot send you a "quick little summary" of the book's plot. (Oh, the sweet, terrorized panic of a junior high student late with a book report.) I'm an amateur Heidi reader rather than a Spyri scholar. :)
I've fixed most of the broken links on the site, and will get the rest done this week. Hooray! :)
Please don't faint, but I updated The Bookstore!
Boy, is it ever time for me to update this site. My daughter is turning three next month, and my energies have been diverted elsewhere the past few years. :) I'll make some site improvements and updates over the next couple of months. Stay tuned, and thank you for visiting.
Hi, everybody. I get great email from people who visit this site, and recently I received one that I like so much I'd like to share a bit of it with you all. (The author gave me permission.) Here 'tis:
I enjoyed your site very much. I had read an extremely abridged version of Heidi as a child but discovered the full text version online at the Gutenberg Project site. Through several coincidences of fate, my parents frequently visited family in Appalachia so I grew up loving mountains, I took German in high school and college, and I now live on a slightly rolling piece of land with my family and four goats.
Here is a 2002 photo of my youngest daughter and our first doe, Jewels. My daughter would have been 2 1/2 years old then (and looks a little pudgy!); I call her out little goat girl. When she gets older, I'll read Heidi to her.
Hi, everybody. Just a reminder that I am unable to give you information about your personal copy of Heidi. I receive questions of this nature very frequently via email, but I am not an expert on Heidi, Spyri, or old books, I'm just what you'd call an "amateur enthusiast." You're best off consulting an antique books dealer.
I'm so sorry, but I've had to remove the email links from the site because I'm just getting an inbox full of viruses. If you want to email me, the address is spyri#@earthlink.net. (Remove the # sign.)
I've added an illustrators category, because so much of the childhood experience of reading Heidi (or having it read to us) involved poring over the illustrations, don't you think? I have always imagined a brunette rather than blond Heidi, influenced by Jessie Willcox Smith's charming illustrations.
I've added links to online versions of Spyri's works in English and German.
I've finally gotten around to freshening up the site's format. I hope you'll now find it cleaner and easier to navigate. I've added this news page to keep you informed of updates on the site or to mention any timely Heidi information that might be of interest. I'll be enhancing some of the fuzzier graphics and adding new content, so check back for updates in the weeks ahead. In the meantime, email me at spyri#@earthlink.net (remove the # sign) with any requests, suggestions, comments, questions or concerns.
--Suzanne
PS Sadly, a very popular link here at the Heidi website is broken. The Big Dave's Cow Sounds website seems to have disappeared. I've left the link up because I'm optimistic we can find him somewhere. Let me know if you know where that emphatic moo went to!