Pippi Longstocking and Heidi

In early December the German Post issued two stamps as the first ones in a new series called Childhood Heroes. The first two characters chosen for the series are Pippi Longstocking and Heidi. For my collection I got both stamps on matching cards. The first two cards with First Day Special Postmarks from Bonn and Berlin arrived on 14th December. A third card with a different Heidi postmark arrived last Thursday.

Pippi Longstocking is a Swedish children's book character. She was created by Astrid Lindgren and her first adventure was published in 1945. Pippi is red-haired, freckled, unconventional, superhumanly strong, playful and unpredictable. Like Peter Pan she does not want to grow up. Her four best friends are her horse and monkey and the neighbours' children Tommy and Annika. As of 2018 her books were translated into 76 languages. 

With a nice matching stamp:
Childhood Heroes (from set of two) (issued 05-12-2019)
with First Day Special Postmark

While Pippi cards are easy to get where I live, Heidi cards were harder to find. Luckily the German Post issued a set of four cards.

Heidi is the main character of two books published by the Swiss author Johanna Spyri in 1881. She is an orphaned young girl living in her paternal grandfather's care in the Swiss Alps. Heidi's books are among the best-selling books ever written and the best-known works of Swiss literature. Very popular is also the Japanese anime Heidi, Girl of the Alps.

The Heidi as seen in the anime is also the one shown on the stamp and the cards. The first card shows Heidi with the goat kid Snowflake and Peter, a goatherd and friend of Heidi.

With a nice matching stamp:
Childhood Heroes (from set of two) (issued 05-12-2019)
with First Day Special Postmark

The second card, which arrived last Thursday, shows Heidi, Peter, the dog Josef and Clara Sesemann, a girl from Frankfurt with paralysed legs who has spent a lonely life in her home until she becomes close with Heidi.

With a nice matching stamp:
Childhood Heroes (from set of two) (issued 05-12-2019)
with a matching special postmark from Gotha

The other two cards from the set show again Heidi, Josef and Peter. Unfortunately missing on all these cards is the Alm-Onji, Heidi's grandfather.