Lucy Longstocking review http://www.wcl.govt.nz/blogs/kids/ind...

Harriet only plays a guest role in the third book which is set back in New York. Sport focuses on Harriet’s friend Simon who is nicknamed Sport, and lives with his really nice but really hopeless Dad. There is not so much mystery in this one, but a lot of action. Poor Sport is really put through the wringer as his evil mother (no, not evil stepmother – just plain old evil mother) tries to gain custody of him so she can get her greedy mitts on his inheritance. This book is intense! Heaps of yelling and cussing and hiding and running and worrying and laughing. (Lots of laughing from me actually, especially when Sport and his friends get their own back against rich ladies and cops -ha-ha).

I understand the publisher rejected this book, sending it back to Fitzhugh with substantial changes; she put it aside, and there it sat until she died. Published after her death to cash in on Harriet's popularity; the original decision not to publish was correct. Harriet makes a couple of cameo appearances (one with Janie), but otherwise has no part in the story at all.

4.5 stars

Sport may not quite measure up to the first two Harriet the Spy books, but I love it nonetheless. Like the previous books, it comments a lot on materialism and loneliness, but with enough funny parts to keep it from being a downer. Some of the humor is quite dark for a childrens' book, but it is used sparingly and probably won't traumatize anyone.

Fitzhugh's voice and characters are wonderful as usual, and the varied setting of New York City is used to great effect, contrasting the welcoming shabbiness of Sport's neighborhood with the superficial comforts of his cold-hearted mother's lifestyle. I do wish Harriet featured more in this book, but Sport's other friends are fun too. Despite being a bit rough around the edges, they are true friends to Sport and wonderful energetic additions to the cast. If you liked Harriet the Spy, definitely try this one too: it's warm, witty and full of surprises!

It was ok. It is great that everything seems to be coming up Sport, him and his father are getting everything that they need in life plus more.

Sport finally gets to be the kid that he is.

Not Fitzhugh’s best, maybe because it was published five years after her death and she presumably could have edited it further if it had been published in her lifetime. The plot is pretty fantastical, and aspects are dated. But there are some sharp observations.

The story of Harriet the spy's friend Sport, whose poor writer dad inherits money, and suddenly they have all kinds of money where before they ate a lot of baked beans. Now, Sport is living at the Plaza and watching out for kidnappers. I think. It's been a long while since I read this.
Not the greatness that is Harriet the Spy - this is just a fun kids's book.

although i have never read this it seems good because the others are so good.

The last book was Beth Ellen's fault because this one was fine even if it was a bit weird to see Harriet while being disembodied from her thoughts. Just seeing a girl sit there and write makes it clear why everyone thought she was so weird!
But no, this book was great, Sport is good fun, and I enjoyed it. It's not high liturature, but it's not garbage either.

Sport is a lucky kid and I wish him well.

As a childhood fan of Fitzhugh's 'Harriet the Spy' I was sorely disappointed in this follow up. Sport and his father are far less intriguing than Harriet and her cast of characters; there is much less insight about human character because Sport does not observe people in the way Harriet did, which was the inspiring charm of the original book. Oddly, Sport is less sympathetic when taken in his own apartment, and seems rather one dimensional. This book's plot devices - greedy mother, wealthy grandfather's death, kidnapping scheme and dad's love interest - just don't ring true. Frankly it was a bore to read. The novel is a sad mirror of it's time - with offensive remarks about cops, Puerto Ricans, Jews, and Blacks (yes - I was stunned to read the N word) - which might have been palatable if Sport's situation had drawn me in and made me sympathetic so that I could understand him and his place in his world.

I loved Harriet the Spy when I was a kid and liked the sequel, The Long Secret. I recently read an article in which the Louise Fitzhugh was discussed and it made me want to reread the books. Sport is another sequel published posthumously many years after the first books and many years after I stopped reading children’s books so I’d missed it. Unfortunately Sport is not nearly of the same quality as the earlier books and Sport, the character, has been changed in subtle and unsatisfying ways. In Harriet, Sport was a relatively happy kid. He had lots of responsibility caretaking his preoccupied father, but he was good at it and not resentful. Sport’s father was barely eking a living but they were making it. Sport didn’t seem to consider his life hard or unusual—his was just another kind of family. In this book Sport is so rapidly plunged into real troubles that he seems an overwhelmed and helpless kid. Sport’s relationship with his newly rediscovered mother is virtually identical to Beth Ellen’s relationship with her equally re-entering mother in The Long Secret, which is a problem for me. I have faith that Fitzhugh had more than one idea about mother-child relationships and having now read this book, I fear it was an undeveloped draft that someone decided to publish after her death. After nearly identical scenes of new wardrobes and new lifestyles with rich moms, Sport’s mom goes beyond the pale and does some seriously bad stuff. It IS a children’s book so there’s a happy ending but it seems sort of contrived after all that’s gone before. I’m left loving Harriet the Spy but trying to forget Sport.

Had it's moments but this is one that readers of Harriet the Spy and The Long Secret can pass on without feeling they've missed anything - Sport becomes a multi-millionaire on the death of his grandfather and mumsie who has never played any role in his life wants back in to get more cash - the sections of the novel focusing on Sport and his friends are lovely but otherwise this is a very forgettable fiction

August 2020 - still a very second rate book compared to both Harriet and The Long Secret and I'm very troubled by the way Fitzhugh portrays Sport's father's new wife - it's so sexist and seems such a surprise after the earlier books