Although Johanna Spyri wrote perhaps fifty children's stories in all, no other book has enjoyed the success of Heidi, which was a best seller from the moment of its first publication in Germany in 1880. She set all her stories in the lands she knew best—mainly Switzerland, but also France, Germany, and northern Italy. After Heidi, her first fulllength book, she wrote others about Swiss mountain inhabitants. Some of the best known of these are Children of the Alps; Gritli's Children; Cornelli; Dora; Mazli; Moni, the Goat Boy; and Eueli, the Little Singer. All were written in German and later translated into English.

Because of its enduring popularity, Heidi was a natural candidate for movie adaptations and children's theater productions. Each of these dramatizations imposed its own interpretation on Spyri's beloved story, exaggerating character traits, intensifying dramatic scenes, sometimes even altering the story...