Harriet the Spy
I don't think there's ever been a greater book for kids of 12 years old or so, and certainly there's never been one that holds up so well for adults even more than fifty years after it was written.
It has two of the most unforgettable characters in all of literature: finicky, hypercritical, lonely, and suspicious Harriet, and wise and careful Ole Golly. It depicts a world that rarely gets depicted, of elementary-school children in wealthy but unfashionable Manhattan. It is one of the funniest books ever written, with Harriet's notebook observations of her classmates (in all caps) still capable of making me laugh out loud.
And its big moral--that you are going to have to lie in your life if you want to keep your friends and not get hurt--is incredibly right on the money, but is something no other children's book would dream of telling you.
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | November 10, 2021 4:23 AM
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IF MARION HAWTHORNE DOESN'T WATCH OUT, SHE'S GOING TO GROW UP INTO A LADY HITLER.
| by Anonymous | reply 1 | November 10, 2021 4:08 AM
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Loved that book and ran around my house and yard carrying a notebook and pen. Not as easy to spy on neighbors in a leafy suburb with big yards as it would be in tighter Manhattan where so much is within ear shot.
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | November 10, 2021 4:13 AM
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It was the first book I remember encountering as a child that depicted mental illness. The early chapter where Harriet visits Ole Golly's mother was shocking and all the more so for not explaining the fact that the character was suffering from dementia.
Harriet has been identified as potentially a lesbian (the author was a lesbian); her male friend Sport always read to me as gay.
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | November 10, 2021 4:17 AM
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There have been several threads on Harriet and Louise Fitzhugh ... here's one.
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | November 10, 2021 4:23 AM
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