Heidi

Johanna Ward is an EXCELLENT narrator! This is a perfect audiobook to listen to when you need a break from the lengthier heavy plotted novels (and I've listened to all sorts!).

Hollywood through its inventions and alterations has never done justice to Johanna Spyri's Heidi. It has always served up syrupy and unsatisfying movie versions. On the other hand, the narrator Johanna Ward pours forth mountain tops, fir trees, goat herds, flowers, slices of goat cheese, howling winds, bright stars, heartbreak, love and the magnificent wonder of life. This is the story of three men, an old woman and a young woman each broken and alienated in their own way as told through the optimistic and cheerful orphan Heidi. It is a story of their healing and reconciliation. Each had a heavy burden, the grandfather, bitter at the world, rich Herr Sesemann with a beloved but perhaps dying daughter, the doctor suffering from the lost of his own daughter, the lonely, poverty stricken grandmother and wheelchair bound Clara Sesemann.

Heidi is a very simple girl with simple dreams and faith, for this is a book of dreams and faith. Clara told her father that life was never dull with Heidi about. Heidi lighted up every room she entered from the grandmother's dark corner to the grand rooms of Frankfurt mansions. This is a story of five people who drew from Heidi new strength and made it their own becoming changed within then healed and whole again.

I loved the narrator's intonations and her use of various vocal effects.

I read this book years ago. Needed something to listen to while exercising. The story was more enjoyable than I remembered. Johanna Ward made listening a thoroughly delightful experience.