Myrto

Well. When I was about ten years old, I loved this book. I'm sure I read it ten or twelve times. The allure of reading about fresh mountain breezes when my own location was 105 F in the summers was powerful. I loved how Heidi stuck it to grouchy old Rottenmeier.

But I made the mistake of going back to it as an adult last year. Ugh! It had turned into a thinly disguised morality play, with idealized and romanticized visions of rural life. The author obviously had an axe to grind on several hot button topics of the day, including the urban/rural divide, how children should be raised, and the place of religion in daily life, to name a few.

I should learn my lesson here and stop rereading childhood books at this jaded old age of 33.