The other day my girlfriend said something about her love of tomato and mayonnaise sandwiches, to which I naturally replied "Yeah? Do you like to roll around and pretend you're an onion, too?"

And she had no idea what I meant.

How do you not know Harriet the Spy? She has to rank competitively with the greatest literary characters of all time- so spunky, so misunderstood, so maligned by her peers toward the end. There was even some kind of high budget film that got made a few years ago. Frankly, it makes me sad to imagine a life without Harriet the Spy.

"ratfink!"

"...Who is this girl and why is she so angry?’

For some reason, whenever I read a book that speaks deeply to me, it always turns out the author is a big old lesbian. And of course, Harriet the Spy is no exception. For decades queer women have cited the iconoclastic, gender non-conforming Harriet as an inspiration, and author Louise Fitzhugh was a semi-out lesbian in the 1950s.

There is a funny story about a young Fitzhugh, who refused to wear anything fancier than Bermuda shorts for a country-club dance:

“I’m not going to join those menstruating minstrels," she protested. At any rate, it's pretty clear where Harriet's journal entries inherited their acid tone. Entries like:

“If Marion Hawthorne doesn't watch out, she's going to grow up into a lady Hitler.”

and

“I’ll tell you one thing, I don’t want to live like Miss Whitehead. The other day I saw her in the grocery store and she bought one small can of tuna, one diet cola, and a package of cigarettes. Not even one tomato. She must have a terrible life.”

I noticed a few reviews are whining that Harriet is mean. Well, Fitzhugh never meant for her to be a sweetheart. In fact, she herself described Harriet to a friend as "a nasty little girl who keeps a notebook on all her friends.” A queer woman born into the upper class society of 1950's Memphis, Fitzhugh chafed against the expectations and norms that were imposed upon her. I'm sure writing down all the nasty, frustrated thoughts of a young girl like herself, felt like liberation.

In a time and context that looked down upon ambitious, intellectual woman, here was a book where two young girls, one an aspiring writer, the other an aspiring chemist, discuss the best way to poison someone. ."I'll be damned if I go to dancing school!” Harriet declares at one point. One librarian called Fitzhugh's novel, "dangerous in the hands of children", and The Christian Science Monitor called Harriet “a pathetic figure … Too pathetic one hopes for children to admire.”

So you're probably wondering, if it was so subversive, how did it ever see publication? Well, we should be extremely grateful to Ursula Nordstrom at Harper for nurturing Fitzhugh's iconoclastic, queer feminist voice, and shepherding the book along. Charlotte Zolotow, who was involved in editing the book, recalls that:

“...she and editor Ursula Nordstrom read [Harriet's journal entries] aloud to each other, hooting with laughter. All the while, Louise sat curled up in a chair, scowling. ‘You hate it, don’t you?’ she finally said. ‘Oh, no,’ said Ursula. ‘We love it! It’s just not a book yet. You need a story. Who is this girl and why is she so angry?’”

It's easy to see, in hindsight, why someone like Harriet would be so angry.

That's not to say that this book is pure rage and hatred. Ole Golly, Harriet's nurse and mentor is a real force of love and care in this story. She loves the prickly Harriet for who she is, encourages her to pursue writing, and knows how to counsel her. She's probably the only adult Harriet really respects or listens to. I really loved how Ole Golly knows that Harriet is insulated from most people due to her family's wealth, so she takes her out to meet people from all walks of life. She is also constantly trying to expand Harriet's intellectual horizons, encouraging her to read widely—she quotes Dostoevsky to Harriet at the beginning of the book:

“Love all God’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.’ ”

That quote sums up Ole Golly's character pretty well, and losing someone who embodies that love and curiousity for the world causes Harriet to spiral about halfway through the story. Luckily, the seeds that "OG" planted in Harriet, eventually begin to take root and flower into empathy by the end of the novel. It's gratifying to watch Harriet grapple with this. After (reluctantly) playing an onion in a school pageant, she begins considering what it's like to be something or someone else:

"I HAVE THOUGHT A LOT ABOUT BEING THINGS SINCE TRYING TO BE AN ONION. I HAVE TRIED TO BE A BENCH IN THE PARK, AN OLD SWEATER, A CAT, AND MY MUG IN THE BATHROOM. I THINK I DID THE MUG BEST BECAUSE WHEN I WAS LOOKING AT IT I FELT IT LOOKING BACK AT ME AND I FELT LIKE WE WERE TWO MUGS LOOKING AT EACH OTHER. I WONDER IF GRASS TALKS."

By the end of the novel, you can start to see that Harriet's efforts at "being things" to learn about them, has now extended to the people in her life:

“She made herself walk in Sport’s shoes, feeling the holes in his socks rub against his ankles. She pretended she had an itchy nose when Janie put one abstracted hand up to scratch. She felt what it would feel like to have freckles and yellow hair like Janie, then funny ears and skinny shoulders like Sport”.

You can still hear her judgmental tone in what she notices, but now that voice is tempered with empathy. Harriet will never be the demure debutante her parents want her to be, but she is at least learning to apply Ole Golly's advice that "[to write] is to put love in the world, not to use against your friends."

All this to say, I'm very glad I finally read this old classic, it still holds up! Without Harriet and her journal, I doubt we get other funny yet brutally honest kids books like: "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret", Junie B. Jones, Judy Moody, Dear Dumb Diary, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, etc., and young girls in 2024 are forced to read nothing but American Girl Novels or some shit like that.

I feel as if I enjoyed this one more the first time through. I don't know if it's just my mood, or what, but I was horribly annoyed by almost every single character, even (and sometimes especially) Harriet. I know that children can be mean, bratty little things, but it grated on me to read about it today. However, I do always enjoy the Mrs. Plumber and Mr. Withers stories; the latter especially goes to show that sometimes you just need a little kitty in your life.

This is one of my favorite books of all time. I first read it as a teenager and it still holds its charm over 30 years later.

I just read this for the first time since I was about 8 or 9, and it is amazing! I felt the gamut of emotions, but I think what I felt the most was pity for Harriet. I don't know if I picked up on just how lonely her childhood was or the depth of her depression (after Ole Golly leaves and the children are so vicious to her) when I read this the first time. This was pretty revolutionary stuff when it came out in the 1960's, I am sure - it shows children with a real complexity of emotions, as they really are.

I don’t even know how to rate this. Don’t ask me why I picked this up. A booktuber who decided to go back and read old childhood favorites to see if they held up inspired me to do the same. I was fairly outraged by her depiction of Harriet as the most vile child protagonist on earth. Not the cute smart little Harriet from my memories! So I decided to pick it up and give it a go. First surprise was that the book was 400 pages. Not the little thin book I was expecting.

Now, to be fair. I hardly remember anything about this book, other than the fact that when I was younger this book caused me to want to carry around my own notebook. More than a desire to be a spy, it was about wanting to be a writer, but even more than even that it was about my ever present (even in youth) love for notebooks. So I insisted on getting the same sort of black and white composition notebooks that she used in the movie, and did my best to emulate her.

But here’s where things get foggy in my memory. I read the book, I know I did, but I have basically no memory of it. I do remember the movie tho, and remember Rosie O’Donnell was Ole Golly (I think?) and I remember the cute little actress that played Harriet and as far as I can recall, Harriet from the movie was nothing like Harriet from the book I just read.

Because yes, Harriet the spy from the famous children’s book is absolutely positively irrefutably the most vicious, vile, cruelly insensitive protagonist ever to grace the world of children’s literature. She was downright wicked. But before I place the blame entirely on her, I have to point out the total non existence of any parental guidance or discipline, her parents are completely vapid and self absorbed and her only source of maternal or paternal affection or instruction comes from her nanny Ol Golly, who leaves her when she’s 11 years old and bothers only to send one letter after her abrupt departure saying quite frankly, “you have to lie,” if you want to keep your friends and ““Another thing. If you’re missing me I want you to know I’m not missing you. Gone is gone. I never miss anything or anyone because it all becomes a lovely memory. I guard my memories and love them, but I don’t get in them and lie down.” And while I understand the sentiment, not exactly prize winning advice coming from a girl’s only figure of authority, & her true mother figure being that her own mother was mostly absent. Not something like, “you have to work hard to see life through the eyes of others,” walk a mile kind of thing, or “kindness is always the answer because you never know what somebody is going through,” or “there is so much more to people than meets the eye,” or “you cannot ascribe a person their worth simply by judging their appearance but rather in watching how they treat their fellow man and people less fortunate than themselves.” any of those kinds of things would do! Something to teach her a little empathy! But no. Just tell her to tell bold faced lies and don’t address the main issue at hand, that she has an alarming lack of empathy and a fundamentally cruel nature. I honestly thought she was possibly sociopathic.

Hariett got it into her head somewhere along the way that she wants to be a spy. So she has a “route” in her neighborhood that she traverses daily, poking about, spying in windows, eavesdropping, trespassing, breaking and entering, the works. In short: spy stuffs. Only rather than solving some kind of mystery which I incorrectly assumed/misremembered was at the heart of the novel, she writes instead her every single insensitive, brutal, malicious thought. It is usually almost always something to do with how ugly or fat somebody is, how repulsive, how boring, the pimple on their nose, how she wants to hit or kick somebody, you get the gist. Not a single nice or pleasant thing to be found anywhere even about those closest to her. When her best friend Sport proudly shows Harriet his secret stash of "CPA stuff" (cuz he says he wants to be a CPA) and explains how he is responsible for his and his father's finances, forced to take his father's checks weekly and budget for the two of them, otherwise his father will simply spend it all immediately and they won't eat that week. She leaves his house and immediately begins her musings in her notebook. What makes somebody rich? What makes somebody poor? Is she rich or is she poor? This doesn't exactly sound like the 11 year old she's supposed to be but rather the childish musings of a 4 or 5 year old. I realize that this may be in fact a social commentary on the lives of sheltered and privileged rich kids, but I myself was sheltered and privileged and I can tell you that at 11 years old I was more than able to grasp such very basic concepts such as "rich" and "poor" and the fact that money was what made you either one of these. When Harriet's notebook is ultimately taken from her, and all her heartless, unsympathetic thoughts read aloud for all the students in her class to hear, including those referring to her best friends Sport and Janie, Harriet is once again wholly incapable of producing a single iota of remorse or empathy. She is instead indignant at the breach of privacy (never mind the fact the entire basis of said notebook is literally about invading everyone else's privacy, but we won't dwell on that for too long because if Harriet is unable to conclude on her own that remorse should be the prevailing sentiment in this situation then she most certainly will not be able to understand anything about the hypocrisy of her actions.) She seems a bit lost, confused even as to why she incited the wrath of her classmates and seems to believe that their anger will dissipate quickly and her life return to normal. Another example of Harriet showcasing borderline sociopathic tendencies. I think back on my 11 year old self and think on how I might've handled this situation had I been in her shoes. And one thing I know for sure is that at 11 years old I would have been fully capable of understanding 1. That what I had said was positively atrocious and 2. That I owed everyone, especially my friends an apology. At that age I would have been old enough to understand that Sport's home life was unfortunate, I would have had the capacity for not just understanding but for empathy and sadness over my friend's situation, and if I had done and said the things she did I would have had the decency and ability to feel wracked with guilt over the hurt I had caused somebody that I loved and cared for. And naturally, (or one would think) I would have felt regret and remorse, and been consumed with little else beyond making my apologies and doing my best to repair feelings and relationships. That's me tho, and any other normal little girl. Harriet on the other hand is completely clueless, the idea of apologizing doesn't even make an appearance in her thoughts. Instead all she does is procure another notebook, continue to do the things that have gotten her into the position she's in (a.k.a. write her cold hearted savage thoughts about everybody around) and in fact only gets meaner, and nastier. (trips one kid so that he falls and gets a bloody nose, pinches another girl, cuts a chunk out of another girl's hair, etc) It is truly truly mind blowing. I had to remind myself constantly that she’s 11, and even the brattiest 11 year old brat deserves a little bit of allowance made for youth, but Harriet was pretty much as despicable of a human being as they come. Cruel. Malicious. Ruthless. Mean spirited. Just nasty. 11 year old nasty, meaning that the nasty is about pimples and bad smells and the otherwise unintentional nasty of a child as opposed to the calculated cruelty of adults. But one is only on its way to becoming the other, and Harriet is already half way there. I have no doubt Harriet has a future that consists of problems maintaining healthy connections and relationships with a potential personality disorder diagnosis in her future.

The ending comes and goes without any growth from Harriet whatsoever. She realizes what she must do in order to proceed doing what she wants to do, & does it solely to benefit herself. She thinks only of herself and never lends so much as a single thought to her friends and the pain she has caused them, remorse and regret seem to feelings she is incapable of, and her very nature is cruel, sadistic and mean spirited. I really did not want to revel in the bullying of a child, no matter how much she deserved it, but the spiteful part of me could not help wanting to see Harriet punished. I think I hoped that she would have an a-ha, come to the light moment and finally feel the remorse she so strangely seemed incapable of feeling. I thought maybe in witnessing her classmates forgiveness, it might dawn on her that people have hidden depths and worthwhile traits even as they might also be fat or have pimples. But no. None of this happens. Harriet throws tantrums, screams, is vile and cruel, she is downright ruthless and feels zero remorse for ANYTHING, and she learns absolutely nothing other than she must occasionally lie and pretend to be sorry in order not to be inconvenienced. She carries on with her notebook, her spying, and her stunningly innate cruelty, and that is the end.

I really could not make sense of what the author was trying to do here. I can’t say that there wasn’t something that was strangely funny about this, even while I was appalled and disgusted by Harriett, she was still a little funny. Funny the way that bullies can be, & I wondered if maybe her sole intent was that she was aiming at humor for children and just sorely missed her mark? I don’t think so though. There’s commentary here on privileged kids and neglected kids and all that, but I think she misses the mark there too. I learned a long time ago that characters without growth make for unlikeable static characters, and that’s exactly what Harriet is. I find it hard to believe that in reading one of my old child favorites I found one of my most hated protagonists but that is the truth. Harriet is a mean, cruel, heartless little asshole, and I’m not sure if I’m sad that I read this and spoiled the memory, or glad so that I no longer go on in life endorsing this book. I very likely would have purchased this book for my child one day had I not re-read this! But knowing what I know now, I absolutely would NOT want my child reading this and thinking that this was an acceptable way to behave, or behavior to laugh at.

I know that this was written and especially popular during the 60’s (and 70’s) at a time when society’s views of women were just being challenged & the typical female protagonists was traditional, feminine, etc. Harriet was supposedly a misfit role model, a character that stood out for many that were searching for something/anything different. She provided readers with a character who was “other.” Who did not fit it, and who refused to conform. In her own way, she was very principled and determined. Steadfastly true to herself. She was (literally) unapologetically herself. In that sense, & that sense only I understood the appeal. Whether or not a child is consciously aware of what is appealing about Harriet, a natural gravitation towards a misfit rebel type is understandable. Somebody with the strength to resist the temptation to conform. This, I can understand. But beyond that I really struggle to look past her heartlessness and cruelty. She might offer a reader a rebel to align themselves with, but her cruelty and callousness are really her defining traits. It’s such a fundamental part of her essence that I can’t force myself to look past it and see herself simply as some fierce little non conformist. There’s a difference between being different than other people, and being needlessly hurtful and mean. Having compassion for others is something that we should all hope to have innately, and that should be what is truly at the core of misfit and rebel stories. Compassion and love and acceptance for everyone, including even the misfits and the rebels. A rebel’s mantra is to be true to oneself, but that doesn’t mean that you’re the only one that matters, everyone else be damned! I remember once at a wedding I went to, the stepmother of the bride was in a huff over some previous slight. She insisted that she couldn’t show up for pictures because she didn’t want to be “fake.” She needed to be true to herself she said. I gently explained that there is a difference between being fake, and being polite. That in certain situations tact, & compassion should take precedence over blunt truths. And on the day of her wedding, a person which has committed no great crime, it is simply the right thing to do to smile and make nice, even if it’s just for that one day. Sometimes your feelings and needs aren’t the #1 priority. Most adults come to understand this at some point. Only sociopaths and assholes don’t. Harriet never seems to reach this conclusion. She is just so disconnected from the feelings of others, blind & wholly removed from the pain she causes, which I don’t think should ever be something we seek to emulate. Regardless of whether or not the ostracized Harriet is relatable, it should be pointed out that her expulsion from classroom politics came about as a result of her own actions. The class’s unity against her happened only after her own vicious behavior to each and every one of them. These are the consequences of her own actions and this should not be forgotten simply because she is then forced to stand alone. All in all, I don’t think she should be anybody’s role model and I don’t think her traits are ones to strive for. Self assurance and loyalty to oneself should not come at the cost of kindness and compassion and that’s basically what Louise Fitzhugh seems to be pushing here. I don’t buy it.

One star for the fact that it was readable, I flew threw this and did not feel the bored under stimulated feeling that I feel so often when I’ve picked up old favorites (Sweet Valley Twins, Goosebumps, etc) but minus 4 stars for Harriet being the worst kind of little girl.

Ugh. Just ugh.

i can’t believe i read this book when i was ten… the mc is so bitchy and no lesson is learnt? harriet constantly victimizes herself and gets away with no scratch. 2 stars only for the nostalgia

3.5 Stars

I used to really, really love this book. Louise Fitzhugh has a fantastic style, and Harriet's voice comes through clearly. Harriet, whose ambition is to be a writer and a spy (her commitment to each varies throughout the book) writes in her notebook constantly. Mostly she's keeping notes on the people around her, both her classmates in her sixth-grade class and the people she spies on. The latter are fascinating and so well portrayed, with all their quirks and oddities. But Harriet doesn't pull any punches, and when (as is inevitable) the truth about her writing comes out, she pays a heavy price and learns some valuable lessons about what a writer actually does.

Or should.

Harriet is extremely perceptive, and her skewering of her classmates is accurate, which is probably why it pisses them off so badly. And this isn't a didactic novel, fortunately, because I think it would dilute Harriet's gift if the story were turned into some afterschool special about the meaning of friendship. But the one thing Harriet never realizes is that being perceptive, seeing to the heart of things, doesn't have to mean being cruel. It doesn't have to mean seeing only the bad. Harriet comes close to realizing this when she witnesses one of the people on her spy route, Little Joe, surrounded by heaps of food he seems to be devouring--and then he gives half of it away to some starving urchins. Harriet sees, but she doesn't understand.

The ending is particularly odd: Harriet's given the job of editing the sixth grade contribution to the school paper and uses it as an outlet for her writing ability. But she continues to skewer people, this time adults who are in a position to object to her airing their secrets before the whole school. I think, since the book ends with Harriet apologizing and her friends Janie and Sport forgiving her, it's meant to be a happy ending--but since her apology is a lie, and one her former nurse Ole Golly encouraged her to tell, I'm not sure Harriet has changed at all. Forget about such inanities as learning her lesson; if there's no change, then there's no point.

I still really admire how brilliantly characterized this book is, but I have too many reservations about the conclusions I think the reader's meant to draw to truly love it anymore.

I'm finishing up my Leaning Stack of Books 2021 Midlife Crisis Bingo card this month (https://leaningstack.blogspot.com/202...), and one of my remaining squares was "Old Love." I chose to re-read my original edition of Harriet the Spy (not with the cover pictured here on Goodreads), which has been sitting on my shelf for decades. I haven't wanted to read it again, because I loved it so much as a child. I knew that I wouldn't experience it the same way now that I'm older.

And I didn't. This book is such an early 1960s book, complete with all sorts of things that won't fly in children's literature today: ethnic slurs and stereotypes, fat phobia, class stereotypes, gender stereotypes. But Harriet is such a badass in a world where little girls were supposed to be sugar and spice and everything nice. Is that why I loved it? Did I get to imagine what my life would be like if I articulated my mean thoughts? I'm reading the recent biography of the novel's author (Sometimes You Have to Lie by Brody) now, so I'll be writing more about Harriet soon.

This isn’t a great children’s book. This is a great book whose protagonist happens to be very young.

This is a book that manages to be shocking in spite of the absence of sex, drugs, and violence. Harriet isn’t forced to kick arse in a fight to the death, or struggle to feed her family. On the contrary, the only shocking thing about her personal circumstances is how privileged she is. Her family employs a housemaid, a cook, and a “nurse” improbably named Ole Golly.

It can be hard for a modern reader of any age to understand what exactly that last job entails. Harriet isn’t sick, or sickly, so Ole Golly isn’t that kind of nurse. Ole Golly isn’t a babysitter exactly, either. She does stay with Harriet when her parents go to parties at night, which is frequently; but she doesn’t supervise Harriet very closely, or even walk her to school. She’s a bit like a governess, but she doesn’t teach lessons.

Actually, she does. She just isn’t paid to. And although Harriet leads a pampered existence, Ole Golly believes she can handle tough truths. “Tears won’t bring me back,” she says sternly when she has to leave Harriet for good. “Remember that. Tears never bring anything back. Life is a struggle and a good spy gets in there and fights. Remember that. No nonsense.”

And, later, in a letter:

If you’re missing me I want you to know I’m not missing you. Gone is gone. I never miss anything or anyone because it all becomes a lovely memory. I guard my memories and love them, but I don’t get in them and lie down. You can even make stories from yours, but remember, they don’t come back. Just think how awful it would be if they did. You don’t need me now. You’re eleven years old which is old enough to get busy at growing up to be the person you want to be.

Don’t sit around missing me when I’m gone. Life is tough, and eleven years old is plenty old enough to get out there and start fighting for what you need.

Tell that to a generation who grew up on the creepy stalker vision of parental care presented in Love You Forever.

This may not sound too startling to people who regularly devour dystopian and gritty urban YA fiction. Yes, Katniss has to fight actual life-or-death battles. But the whole point of her story is that she shouldn’t have to. Harriet is taught early on that life is a fight, and even members of the well-fed elite have to jump into the ring.

Granted, Harriet’s battles are brought on by her own worst qualities. She has a lot of them. She is not a winning, adorable child. She’s blunt and obnoxious and thinks mean things even about the people she cares about. And she doesn’t care about many.

She alienates everyone she knows with her writing. And then she wins them back – with her writing.

This book has aged well in every sense. It’s fun for an adult to read or reread because the writing is ridiculously, enviably good. It’s a book to give to children for the same reason. It’s also a terrific cautionary tale for very modern reasons.

As Meg Cabot, author of the Princess Diaries series, points out in her short appreciative essay:

Louise Fitzhugh could not have known how prescient Harriet the Spy was. Fifty years after its publication, some young girls and boys (and even old ones too) are still recording their innermost thoughts and feelings, only now they’re doing it far too publicly on the Internet, causing themselves untold amounts of trouble.

If only they listened to Ole Golly.

Cabot’s essay is included along with several others, all by prominent writers. Gregory Maguire’s even includes an excerpt from an early diary he kept after being inspired by Harriet’s example:

Tonight when we were going to swim, Annie said, “Aaahh! There’s a spider in my goggles.”
Joe said, “Drown it! Throw it in the lake!”
Annie said, “No, don’t drown it.”
I said, “Annie, since when have you cared about the welfare of a measly spider?”
She said, “It’s not that. I just don’t want any drowned spiders in any lake that I intend to swim in.”

Read this book if you haven’t already. Reread it if it’s been awhile. And get this anniversary edition if you don’t already have your own copy of Harriet. It’s a lot of fun to see how other authors were affected by the abrasive but compelling Harriet M. Welsch.

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce you to a very important person to me: Harriet M. Welsch, aka Harriet the Spy. She has been there for me on more than one occasion when I've needed her and she has not let me down. I don't anticipate she ever will.

I read this book at least once every year or two, or at least generally when things in life are rather poopy. I consider this the macaroni and cheese of the literary world, my mashed potatoes, my pudding. I just had my thyroid surgically removed on Thursday and while I've been out of the house periodically and done some things since anesthesia has worn off, mostly the best thing for me right now is to stay on the couch and watch shitty TV and read. I turned to reading this now because it reminds me of happy childhood memories, and how much Harriet has meant to me, and how much I relate to her, and how that relationship has changed (or not) over the years. Sitting on the couch under big blankets, sipping ginger ale through a straw and eating animal crackers (or putting animal crackers in my mouth until they dissolve enough so I can swallow them with relatively little discomfort), thinking maybe I should be eating ice cream instead, but deciding it's best not to move at all, and otherwise feeling very sorry for myself because, well, I fucking can... and this little piece of my childhood is there like a friendly stuffed animal.

This book is simultaneously a lesson plan and a holy text for me. When I'm having a hard time, I turn to Harriet. She's the I Ching. (Or, if she's not, then Ole Golly is.) I've learned a lot from these characters, and I've applied these things to my own life over the years. I even learn from Harriet and how I can apply certain attitudes to my life now. I'm not sure if there's another book that has that kind of hold on me.

Like Harriet, I've always written in notebooks. The notebooks have changed over the years, in the frequency in which I write in them, in what I write in them, and sometimes they get artsy, and sometimes they're not. They're always evolving. I would like to think that Harriet's notebooks would evolve if we were able to see her grow into adulthood.

Like Harriet, sometimes writing in notebooks has gotten me in trouble. I've always been extremely territorial about my writing, even when I was working on my degree in Creative Writing. If I wanted to share something, I would, but otherwise I wouldn't, and yes, that would also go to the writing I did for class, and yes, my grades reflected that. I like to think Harriet would get it, if no one else could.

Like Harriet, I've had trouble with friends in the past. My troubles in the beginning were slightly different - making the wrong choices in friends, or having exceptionally dramatic friends, or lying, cheating, thieving kinds of friends. Or wanting to be friends with people who didn't give a crap about me, the ones who made my junior high years a living hell. Incidentally, I believe it was during the junior high years that I didn't have a copy of Harriet the Spy to read at any given moment. I think that shows something. I needed her wisdom and she wasn't there. (And I was too cool to think I needed her at that stage anyway.)

When I came around, I never turned back.

Harriet lived as an only child in the Upper East Side in Manhattan in the 1960s. I read Harriet the Spy for the first time as the youngest of three children in Davenport, Iowa in the 1980s. There were things about her story that I couldn't understand or relate to, like why anyone would need a cook and a nanny, and what the hell is an egg cream anyway? She went to a private school. I didn't even know anyone in a private school in Davenport, Iowa. But her story is timeless - she's just a kid who wants to figure herself out and sometimes she has to be an onion.

We've all had days like that.

There's nothing I can say that can adequately explain my love for Harriet, and I especially can't do it right now where I'm all crummy inside and missing a thyroid. This is a review in progress. It will never be the way I want it to be.

But right now, feeling the way I do, this was another perfect time to spend with Harriet and her tomato sandwiches, to remind me that some days really do suck a big one and that it's okay to be myself and that it's not okay for anyone to take my notebooks away.

It's also a reminder that sometimes it's okay to feel mean. We were raised to be a not mean family, and while I appreciate that effort our parents made, the reality is that people are mean and that it never hurts to be able to protect oneself. Sometimes it's okay to just wake up feeling mean and it's okay to hate the stupid birds singing outside the window. Sometimes it's okay to hate our friends and it's okay to hate our lives. Just like sometimes it's okay to have to be an onion when we would rather not have to be an onion, and it's okay to have to grow up and be able to handle things on our own, and it's okay to say goodbye to Ole Golly (though due to my lowered immune system and the after effects of anesthesia, I cried like a bitch during that part).

This book is full of reminders for me. But mostly it just reminds me of who I am.