When Heidi a cheerful 5-year-old orphan comes to live with her grandfather in the Swiss Alps she brings a bright ray of sunshine into the lives of the people around her. Young Peter a goatherd shares her love of nature and his blind grandmother delights in the little girl's bubbling personality. Even Heidi's surly and hermit-like grandfather the old Alm-Uncle finds his long-lost grandchild a source of immense pleasure.
A few years later when she is forced to go to Frankfurt to serve as a companion for Clara she is a sickly girl Heidi must leave her beloved mountains and friends behind an experience that proves highly traumatic to the innocent and sensitive little girl.