This was a strange book. At first it was a little boring, well to be more precise, I was reading half of the book hoping something will finally happen. I was not attached to the characters as much as I would like. I don't blame it on genre of the book. I have a lot of favorite children's and coming of age books, which I only read this year. The problem I think was that I couldn't find the book educative in terms of role models for children.

harriet is a fucking bitch omg always sticking her nose up other peoples asses shes so nosy i hate her. Do not read its really not worth it literally why read this when you can read anything else. Bad role model for children

I loved this book. Read it first in the fifth grade, then read it at least twice a year after that until it fell out of my book bag in the gym locker room in the seventh grade. Spent the rest of that term known as "Harriet" or "Fuckin' Girly Fag." I guess I preferred "Harriet."

Dezamagitor. Nu am mai simtit atata dezamagire citind o carte de peste 20 de ani, cand am incercat Scarlett dupa Pe aripile vantului :))

Autoarea nu are nici macar scuza ca traieste in zilele noastre, cand lumea o ia razna.

Peste trei sferturi din carte este minunata, inteligenta, realista, plina de umor, dar spre final... presupunerea mea este ca autoarea a fost rapita de extrateresti cu putin inainte sa termine cartea si extraterestii ramasi in loc nu au inteles demersul autoarei si au copiat si ei cateva paragrafe din corpul cartii, apoi au mai scris cateva fraze in acelasi gen si concluzia e cam asta: e super bine sa fii o rasfatata rautacioasa, la granita cu sociopatia, sa nu dai doi bani pe prietenii tai, sa nu intelegi nimic din greselile tale si e super bine si daca nimeni din jurul tau nu incearca sa iti arate ca gresesti.
Sentimentele altora nu valoreaza absolut nimic si parerile fiecaruia au valoare de adevar suprem si fiecare gand aiurit care trece prin cap oricui vine la pachet cu obligatia de a fi anuntat in gura mare, pentru ca asta inseamna CURAJ si TALENT SCRIITORICESC

O carte foarte trista si inspaimantatoare mai ales azi, cand nici nu e nevoie sa ajungi sa scrii la ziarul scolii ca sa umpli lumea de rautati, pentru ca fiecare copil are zeci de conturi de social media pe care le poate folosi fara discernamant... o carte care a ratat, la mustata, sansa de a fi o superba carte pentru copii despre cum nimic nu e alb sau negru, despre alegeri si greseli, despre corectarea lor, despre trait cu greselile tale, despre prietenie, despre empatie, despre ce inseamna de fapt curaj si adevar, despre viata cum e ea si despre oameni asa cum ne-am dori sa fie copiii nostri..

It was with great anticipation that I opened this middle grade novel from 1964. I have often come across characters in other novels who mention Harriet, as well as writers who extol the book for being influential to them from childhood. In fact, Miriam Toews, author of All My Puny Sorrows, said in an interview that Harriet the Spy was one of her favorite books as a kid.

I was expecting a lot and I got a lot but not what I expected. It is true that Harriet is plucky, always a good personality trait for a middle grade female protagonist. It is also true that she has to learn hard lessons and overcome a sort of bullying. She is not, however, a particularly nice child.

Harriet is impulsive, nosy, noisy, sometimes rude and quite judgmental about the grownups and kids she interacts with. She carries a notebook with her at all times, jotting down her observations about these people. She goes to school and does her homework but considers her real work to be spying. Everyday after school she visits locations on her "route" and notes what is going on.

Eventually I got used to Harriet, even feeling sympathetic to her approach to life and admired her independence. Being the only child of wealthy parents who had turned her over to a "nurse" whom she calls Ole Golly (a wise sort who encourages Harriet while giving good life advice) it is quite a shock to the girl and the reader when Golly finds a suitor, marries him and moves away.

Harriet's journal and her disturbing behavior after Golly leaves land her in big trouble at school. She overcomes it but the lesson she "learns" is to remain true to herself and use her proclivities more cunningly to turn her situation around.

By the end, I got why so many admire the book. It is a story for rebels, outliers, fiercely independent types, and of course writers. Harriet discovers she is a writer but also that her spying powers her writing. She could grow up to someone like Patricia Highsmith!!

Warning to moms: if you want your daughters to become nice, well-behaved women who fit in comfortably, don't let them read this one.

I don't seem to be getting a coherent feeling about this book, so I may just start rambling and see what develops. For starters, did anyone besides me feel that Ole Golly was a terrible influence on the kid? Sure, we want kids to learn that telling the truth matters but there is a higher value: that of kindness. Telling the truth that a child has been abandoned by her Dad isn't kind. Or that a boy is so boring, he is known in her mind as The Boy with Purple Socks. The implication is that Harriet is extremely bright so her antisocial behavior isn't so bad. Besides, doesn't anyone feel alarmed that this child is breaking and entering with no penalty? The extremely well to do parents are what we would now call absentee parents and only get involved when things have reached a crisis. They take Harriet to a psychiatrist ONE time and everything is solved? The kid has never been taught to love anyone but her incredibly obnoxious nurse. The nurse is clearly where Harriet picked up the idea of observing people and "telling the truth". Unkind truths. Only perhaps one time did the twerp write something that was true and not mean. She doesn't get punished for her little game of running into the cook at full speed on a daily basis. The cook gets a $5.00 raise (I hope that may be $5 per hour but I suspect it was $5 per day) instead. A big deal was made out of Harriet's love for routine but nothing came of this. She has tomato sandwiches daily and the cook is sick of making tomato sandwiches. So???? Harriet's love of routine is the least of her problems. The more I think about this book, the more I feel dislike for the book and the mc. I just downgraded the book to two stars. I'm glad I reread this book but I'm glad it is off my to read shelf and hopefully the next book I grab won't be so unpleasant. A friend and I were trying to think of books with characters living in apartments and this was mentioned. Harriet is far too rich to live in an apartment. She lives in a brownstone in New York but it hasn't been made into apartments. The one positive thing I'd have gotten about Harriet is that she is insatiably curious about people. Now if only she learns to interact with people, not just observe them!

I did not read Harriet the Spy as a young adult, as many others have, but I can recognize that Louise Fitzhugh did an amazing job of capturing the drama and fixations of childhood. Harriet is destined to be a spy, or at least a writer, and obsessively takes notes on everyone around her: her opinions of them and what they're up to. She sneaks into others' houses and back alleys and overhears conversations, all to fill up her notebook. This all goes south when [I will warn of a spoiler, but the synopsis here on Goodreads says as much] Harriet momentarily abandons her notebook and her friends find it and read it. They quickly discover what we've known all along: Harriet has something mean and hurtful to say about each and every one of them. Once she's ostracized, Harriet must figure out how to return her life to normalcy.

Fitzhugh's writing is great, the observations are keen, and it's fun to get into the wry mind of the protagonist, all except for one problem... Harriet is a horrible little human being. She makes the worst assumptions about others and their motives, treats everyone in her life as a prop, cares only about her own self interest (down to the most trivial comforts), is incapable of sensing the burden she places on others, throws tantrums, manipulates, focuses intently on how to cut others down with her words and actions, and doubles down on this behavior in the face of consequences. She is surrounded by normal people (such as the delightful nanny Ole Golly) who give her plenty of good advice and treat her with grace and sympathy, but none of that seems to register for Harriet, who stubbornly crafts her resume for Future Sociopaths of America. She never apologizes. She never acknowledges, even internally, the hurt she has caused others. She only values others inasmuch as they provide something useful to her. She lacks the hardware for empathy. I'm tempted to read the sequel to see if this ability appears as she develops. I'm sure this story can provide comfort to kids who are at their lowest and hating the world (we all go through that), but I'm not sure what the ultimate takeaway lesson is other than: "Hey, at least you're a better person than this guttersnipe."

Still, it's a fun and quick read, with some excellent nuggets of observation and wisdom.

Is it wrong to do a boozy review of a children's book? Well, this review is not for children, and as it turns out, the book is a delightful read for adults as well as kids.

I hadn't read it in a few decades, but somebody just mentioned it to me and I picked it up again. Let me tell you: Reading Harriet the Spy as an adult is like watching Rocky and Bullwinkle as an adult. You realize that 90 percent of it got right past you when you were a kid.

This book is smart, funny, sarcastic, dark, weird, and so very brave. Also, it's set in a New York of the not-so-distant past that I am so fascinated with. As a kid, I missed just about all of that--or I forgot it. I'm so glad I read it again. I am now forcing it on every kid I know.

But enough about the kids. As an adult reading Harriet the Spy, what shall we have to drink?

I'm going to recommend something fun, lighthearted, easy, and yet surprisingly satisfying, with the most tenuous connection to spies.

I speak, my friends, of the Moscow Mule. (Moscow makes you think of spies, doesn't it? Sort of?)

It's the easiest drink in the world to make. Just fill a glass with ice, squeeze a good-sized wedge of lime into the glass, and either drop that lime in the glass or garnish with another, better-looking slice of lime if you wish.

Now add 1.5 ounces of vodka. Don't get cheap, rotgut vodka, but don't pay a fortune for a fancy bottle and an expensive ad campaign, either. I like Tito's from Austin quite a bit.

Now top it off with a good (non-alcoholic) ginger beer like Reed's. Not ginger ale. Give it a good, vigorous stir to get the vodka moving.

That's it! That's the whole drink. It's bubbly, it's refreshing, it goes down easy. Put a bendy straw in it. Drink it in a hammock while you read Harriet in paperback and laugh out loud.

Louise Fitzhugh was one of those rare children's book authors who actually understood what it meant to be a child, what the world seen through those eyes actually looks like. Harriet M. Welsh is right up there with Scout Finch and Francie Nolan as one of the all time great child heroines in literature. She is whip smart, casually cruel, constantly shouting weird nonsense, frustrating, brilliant and always, always surprising. She's a self styled "spy" who basically stalks her neighbors, family and friends and writes down all her observations in an ever increasing collection of notebooks in preparation for her life as a writer who "knows EVERYTHING." She's unsparing in her observations even of her closest friends.

But when her classmates find her notebook and read the things she has to say about them Harriet finds herself the target of wrathful retribution. Suddenly she is one constantly being watched. Will she have to give up spying for good?

This is one of my favorite books to revisit. There's something equal parts charming and terrible about Harriet's world. Its one of privilege where she's raised by her beloved nanny Ol' Golly (possibly the weirdest and greatest nanny in children's lit ever written. Take that Mary Poppins.) in a townhouse in NYC that includes a cook and maids. She attends an elite private school and her interactions with her parents always seem to happen at a distance, they're always on their way to a party or too distracted to really hear Harriet when she talks to them. There's a sadness to her life that makes her spying understandable. Its like the only way she knows how to be close to people is by staying at a distance and watching.

Harriet's imperfections are also what makes her stand out. She's seriously fucking obnoxious a lot of the time, which is clearly intentional. She's loud, super rude, and soooo judgmental. Weirdly rather than make her impossible to like all this makes her even more lovable. This is what I was like as a child! Kids have no filters, no guile, and very little sense of responsibility. This book is ABOUT a child beginning to understand that actions have consequences, that poorly chosen words hurt people and as Ol' Golly puts it at one point "sometimes you have to lie."

I remember things about this book, it stays with me in ways other books haven't. Harriet's hilarious rehearsal for the school play where she plays an onion and has to work out how an onion "feels" resulting in a hilarious interpretative dance around her parents bedroom. Harriet hiding in a dumbwaiter while she spies on a woman who's decided never to leave her bed again. Harriet yelling for a tomato sandwich and barreling into the cook after school demanding cake and milk.

I remember the wonderful pictures too. Fitzhugh is also responsible for the pen and ink drawings of Harriet and her friends. The spindly and sternly beautiful Ol' Golly, Harriet lying in the bathtub covered in ink after an incident at school, Harriet as an onion rolling on the floor, Harriet with her spy tool belt ready to go on her "route." Every one of them is marvelous.

Fitzhugh captures childhood with this book and its companion The Long Secret and Sport with all its contradictions and imagination and innocence and rage. She captures it perfectly.

Third attempt to read. Still don't like it. But then, I don't like Catcher in the Rye, either. Or The Nanny Diaries. I just find it terribly depressing to read about ugly-spirited, self-centered, stupid people like this. And for a bit I thought it was going to go all Lord of the Flies and be interesting on a classic level, but no, the ending is a cop-out.

Or maybe I just don't get it. So I read the sequel, The Long Secret to see if hindsight would illuminate. It didn't.
...
edit, Dec 2020

Now I'm even more peeved, partly at myself for needing Debbie Reese to point out the issue. See:

"'The crimson zoomed up Ole Golly's face again, making her look exactly like a hawk-nosed Indian.
Big Chief Golly, Harriet thought, what is happening to you?'

In the space of a few words, we see stereotypical depictions of Native people: the hawk nose, the red skin, and the use of "Big Chief" to describe someone with authority.

When I call attention to this kind of content in popular or classic books, someone invariably replies that there's a lot in the book that is important, and that those things are more important than the problematic Native content. Those who say that are pretty much saying that the impact of this derogatory content on a Native reader doesn't count as much as the others who will, in some way, be affirmed by the rest of the story. But I hear that a lot. Over and over, Native kids are expected to push through that kind of content, for the sake of the other kids. "

Choose a better book.

One of my favorite pre-teen books.

A well-written book about a truly detestable character. Even the guy in Despicable Me was nicer. Harriet starts off as a spoiled rich brat who claims to not even know that she's rich, even though her family of three has at least three servants, and she apparently goes to a private school with its own drama teacher and only ten kids in a classroom. Supposedly eleven years old, she comes across as a precocious six-year-old, in terms of the way she behaves and reasons. Sorry, but it is not reasonable for a child her age to have a tantrum, or to announce it beforehand.
The story is about how she observes everything and everyone around her, but in fact she uses this as a pretext to write down really nasty comments about everyone. Eventually, others find out and get upset, very reasonably so, which she doesn't seem to understand. Her parents and her nanny have somehow permitted her to ignore school subjects she doesn't want to learn, like arithmetic. Her obsessions are peculiar and serious enough that by today's standards, she would be at least checked for Asperger's Syndrome. That might explain her lack of empathy for other human beings, her difficulty understanding slang and colloquialisms, her anti-social behavior and her obsession with doing and eating the same things. If she doesn't have that, then she's just a creepy person who deserved the criticism heaped on her by everyone, from her classmates to the family cook.
I could have forgiven the author for the character if the story had a better resolution. Her "learning experience" of writing articles for the school newspaper showed that she hadn't learned a thing, and was only parroting back what might get people to forgive her. Limiting herself to only saying cruel things about non-classmates just isn't the same thing as learning not to say cruel things, and her "apology" to her classmates was mechanical and insincere. As portrayed, Harriet will probably grow up to be a gossip columnist or a papparazzi if she is allowed to spy and write, or a serial killer if she isn't. Her violent acting-out is serious, and never addressed reasonably within the story.
Even though this is considered a classic of children's literature, I would have trouble recommending it.