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The best explanation is therefore probably rickets. Rickets is caused by a lack of vitamin D. The cure for rickets - and a relatively quick cure at that - is sunshine. In all three books sunshine began the cure.

The story is about an orphan girl, Heidi, who has been sent to live with a lonely, angry man at the top of a mountain in the Swiss Alps. This man is her grandfather. Heidi had been previously living with her Aunt Dete, but now Dete has been appointed to a job in Frankfurt.

One of Switzerland's best-loved exports, the little mountain girl Heidi, was a cult figure in her younger years but she disappeared from public life decades ago. Johanna Spyri's heart-warming story was based on the real-life adventures of Heidi Schwaller, 92, who grew up near Chur in the Swiss Alps.

Although Heidi is fiction, the Heidiland area inspired Spyri, and it's what she envisioned for Heidi's home. Spyri even used a few real names of places in the area in the book.

Little Heidi is like a ray of sunshine to those she encounters throughout the story. She transforms the life of her grumpy grandfather and that of her young companion Clara. The key theme in the tale is an appreciation for the beauty and power of nature as exemplified by the majestic environment of the Swiss Alps.

In one of her best vehicles, Shirley Temple stars as the title character in the 1937 children's classic Heidi.

"It was spiteful Clara who dyed Heidi's naturally blond hair a horrible blue, because she was jealous of her. The Swiss heroine was royally fooled by the German girl. The moral of the story: protect your blondness, Swiss girls!"