Harriet the Spy

Hmmmm. I know this is a classic of children's literature, but. Hmmmm.

I L-O-V-E loved the Michelle Trachtenberg and Rosie O'Donnell movie when I was a kid, and had it running through my head a lot while I was reading (why can I remember so very much of a movie I haven't seen in 20 years but can't remember what happened earlier this week?). But although Harriet in the movie wanted to be a spy and wrote lots of things down in her notebook that were mean, she had (to the best of my remembrance) a redemption arc and some personal growth. Book Harriet doesn't really have a redemption arc, and it seems like her friends only go back to hanging out with her because the Spy Catcher's Club is worse?

Book Harriet is CRUEL for literally no reason, and very petulant for an 11-year-old. Her parents are never around and make no attempt to know what's going on in her life, leaving Harriet in the service of a nurse and a cook, neither of whom seem to like her much, so I see why she would act out in these ways, but ... she's just not a nice or pleasant person to be around at any point. She refers to one girl as someone who might grow up to be a “Lady Hitler” and describes classmates moving as if they were in the Gestapo, and that stuff Does Not Hold Up Well (and really, shouldn't have even been acceptable in the '60s when it was published).

I didn't know until the end of the book that this was actually a series, but I think I've had enough of Harriet M. Welsch. I wish this had been better. 2.5 stars.

I really enjoyed this book. I was looking for something very light that I didn't need to think about to hard and this is exactly what I needed. It dove deep into bullying that can start in middle school, but turns out good. Harriet is learning that she can't always count on Ole Golly to be there and that she is going to have to start growing up and figuring out the kind of woman she intends to be.

I did not enjoy that Harriet was forced to just move on from her nurse, Ole Golly, because that is a connection that she has obviously had for a very long time. I think the transition could of been a little better for Harriet to deal with.

When the kids found her notebook I was so angry that he friends were getting angry at what was written because they knew she was a spy and was constantly writing in her notebook. It wasn't something completely avoidable for them. Unfortunately the kids took what she wrote and tried to make it mean more than it did to Harriet, it was just notes about the neighborhood and the people she interacted with.

I hope to read this to my son one day so he will know that sometimes kids are mean. I want him to know if he is being the mean one or if someone else is and to stop it from happening.

Harriet loves to write down everything in her notebook. Some of it is nice. Some of it is not-so-nice.

And then Harriet loses her notebook.

And then Harriet loses all her friends.

You don't often find a story with the emotional resonance of Harriet the Spy.

I have such fond memories of devouring these books as a child! Unfortunately, I'm not sure how well Harriet has fared in the passing decades. She certainly speaks to some essential truths of American childhood, including the distance and unknowability of parents (those mysterious creatures!) and the “mean girls” phenomena. Still, I'm afraid the book will be too slow and Harriet too upper-class to be a current classic.

What an exhausting read! I don't know why I didn't enjoy this book as much as I wanted to. Ole Golly was my favourite character and in a way I sorta hated everyone else. I didn't like the ending either :/ Maybe classics just don't do it for me mehhhh

Scott mentioned this book as one of the classics of his childhood, and I know I read it as a kid but had no memory whatsoever of the story. I read a lot of books as a kid (a particularly huge amount in I think Grade 4 when we had a reading competition and I read every book I could get my hands on) but apparently had poor retention (unless you want to talk about Laura Ingalls Wilder or the Mandie Shaw books). So I borrowed the ebook from the library and plowed through it. It was great! Rich New Yorkers in the 1970s. What kind of name is Ole Golly? Harriet‰ЫЄs difficult phase was heartbreaking. I am not interested in the sequels.

I first read Harriet the Spy when I was about eleven years old; the same general age as the title character. I remember that I quite enjoyed the book, and I'm fairly certain I spent a good several months trying to be a spy just like Harriet. But beyond that I had very little recollection of the story.

The story holds up fairly well, even given the huge technological advances that have been made since it was written in 1964. I actually think the most telling thing as to the age of the story was the fact that Harriet's class at school had ten students. That class size seems more or less unheard of these days, even in private schools.

With my most recent reading–nearly eighteen years later–I found myself more interested in the behavior of the people Harriet observes on her “spy route” than I was in her antics. It was interesting to see how they were described, and the little hints and clues as to who they might be (outside the rather limiting filter of an eleven-year-old's perspective).