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Louise Fitzhugh

Harriet the Spy Library Binding

4.6 2,105 ratings

Book 1 of 4: Harriet the Spy

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Fitzhugh, Louise

Reading age

8 - 11 years, from customers
Book 1 of 4

Harriet the Spy
Language

English
Dimensions

1 x 5.25 x 7.75 inches
Publisher

Paw Prints 2008-05-09
ISBN-10

1435273257
ISBN-13

978-1435273252
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E.L. Konigsburg
4,625
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Product details

Language ‏ : ‎ English
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1435273257
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1435273252
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 8 - 11 years, from customers
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.9 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 1 x 5.25 x 7.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #10,793,946 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.6 2,105 ratings

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About the author

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Louise Fitzhugh

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Louise Fitzhugh was born in Memphis, Tennessee on October 5, 1928. She was the only child of attorney Millsaps Fitzhugh and Louise Perkins. After attending an exclusive girls' school, Miss Hutchison's, she attended three different colleges but never obtained a degree, and traveled in Europe, before finally settling down in New York City to pursue a career as a painter. In the late 1950s she and a friend, Sandra Scoppetone, began work on a beatnik parody of Kay Thompson's Eloise, which was published in 1961 as Suzuki Beane. In 1964 she published her first novel, Harriet the Spy. Although it received mixed reviews from adults at the time, today it is widely regarded as a forerunner to the sort of realistic children's fiction that would dominate the late 1960s and 1970s. Two novels about Harriet's friends followed: The Long Secret in 1965 and Sport, published posthumously in 1979.

Contemporary social issues figured prominently in much of Fitzhugh's work for children: Bang Bang You're Dead was a 1969 picture book with a strong anti-war message and Nobody's Family Is Going to Change (1975) explored both women's rights and children's rights. Ironically, it became the basis of the Broadway musical The Tap Dance Kid with the book's minor male characters taking a lead role, thereby completely overshadowing Emma, the female protagonist. Needless to say, this happened after Fitzhugh's untimely death in 1974 at the age of 46. After her death, three picture books were also published: I Am Three, I Am Four, and I Am Five.

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Megan D

A classic with life lessons to teach

Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2023

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I remember reading this as a 4th grade girl, so when two girls in our after school program got in trouble for writing mean things about others, I bought them each a copy of Harriet The Spy. I also had them write me a book report. Their parents were very appreciative of the fact that I wanted to use the incident as a teachable moment and that I used this book to do so.

Reviewed in the United States on July 17, 2023

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Recommended

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Truth and Consequences

Reviewed in the United States on October 22, 2014

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Written by Louise Fitzhugh and published in 1964, HARRIET is set in New York City and describes the adventures and personal growth of an eleven year old girl. Harriet lives on the Upper East Side, the only child of an affluent couple; they have a cook, they send Harriet to a private school, and they employ a nanny of sorts in the form of Miss Golly, an acerbic woman of sharp intelligence who is given to unexpected quotes.

Harriet is a self-regimented child who likes the stability of repetition. Her room must be precisely so. She always takes tomato sandwiches to school for lunch. She always has cake and milk when she returns from school in the afternoon. She then goes out to spy on a number of people—a rich woman, an Italian family, a cat-crazy man, and a married couple who consider themselves perfect. Harriet writes about them in her notebook … but she also writes about her classmates and her best friends, and the brutal honesty of her thoughts causes five shades of hell when her notebook falls into their hands.

When the world changes around her in unexpected ways, Harriet finds herself unable to cope. In order to bring herself back into focus, she must learn to take responsibility for her actions, to show a little tact, and to be emotionally as well as factually honest. The resulting story is remarkable. Times have changed quite a bit, and eleven year olds seem to be knowledgeable beyond their years, but Harriet is still a winner. She’s rambunctious, laugh-out-loud funny, and yes, inspirational.

Although it usually lands on “best of” lists, HARRIET THE SPY has been greatly criticized over the years. The most persistent complaint leveled against the book is that Harriet is a mean kid who deliberately attacks her friends and classmates. I find the accusation a little silly: Harriet is not so much mean as outrageously honest, and she doesn’t deliberately insult her friends, although they certainly feel insulted when they read what she has privately written. More to the point, the book itself is about personal growth, and Harriet’s foibles (which range from trespassing to a mild profanity to classroom mayhem) are in the nature of lessons to be learned.

Author Louise Fitzhugh was lesbian, and more recently HARRIET THE SPY has been accused of having a homosexual agenda. Harriet is a girl who often dresses like a boy and who behaves in ways that seem boyish; she must, therefore be lesbian. Her friend Sport is a boy who seems somewhat weak; he must, therefore, be gay. And then there is this business about the boy who always purple socks. Everyone knows that purple is a color associated with gays and lesbians. Well … if you are determined to read a “homosexual agenda” into absolutely everything, I suppose you can scratch one out of this. But I’ll think you’re crazy and so will most other people.

Now and then I like to go back to some of the books I read when I was a child. There are the Brains Benton mystery series, and the Oz books, and the whole Hardy Boys/Tom Swift/Nancy Drew thing. And they are all fun and enjoyable in their ways. But to say it flatly, HARRIET THE SPY isn’t just a children’s book suitable for nostalgia; it is one of the best books I’ve read of any type. Simple as that. The 50th Anniversary Edition, available in both print and Kindle, comes complete with the original illustrations by Fitzhugh and a dozen or so essays by authors who comment on the impact the book had on them. Strongly recommend … for children and adults.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

112 people found this helpful

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LA in Dallas

Harriet is another of those brilliant, painful characters

Reviewed in the United States on July 24, 2022

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** spoiler alert **

I read this many years ago (1968, maybe?) after my New York City aunt, who always knew about the hot new books gave it to my sister. I LOVED it (So did my sister.) Harriet was brilliant, as was Ole Golly.

As is usual for a book I read so long ago, I mainly remember certain specific scenes. For instance, I remember Harriet, who saw herself as a future writer, spying on a writer who lived nearby. This writer lived alone and had a large number of cats. While Harriet was watching, he came home from grocery shopping, fed his cats, and ate some yogurt. This caused Harriet to question her career choices: She reckoned she could learn to eat yogurt, but wasn't sure she could endure all those cats. Although when I read it I was close to Harriet in age, I knew immediately that this was flawed logic Louise Fitzhugh had put in for comic effect.

The story is mainly about Harriet learning how unfair the world is. Harriet, to teach herself to write, carries a notebook in which she writes everything, even her most private thoughts. Her notebook is clearly labeled "PRIVATE". Harriet has never really imagined how bad it would be if her private thoughts became public, nor does she realize how thin is the shield of the PRIVATE label on her notebooks. Of course, her notebook is stolen and all her classmates become furious at her. This includes even her best friends Sport and Janie.

By the end of the book Sport and Janie appear to have reconciled themselves to Harriet, so we end if not exactly happily, then at least with some relief.

I am not sure why I liked Harriet the Spy so much. I think it was probably the originality of Harriet's thoughts. As in the case of her writer neighbor, Harriet's thinking was not always linear or logical. But it was always her very own, often insightful.

7 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

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BorreBel

De acuerdo a lo esperado

Reviewed in Mexico on February 6, 2022

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Le gustó mucho a mi hijo

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Meenakshi

Very nice book

Reviewed in India on June 2, 2021

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This book was a reay good read showcases that we are never lonely and problems come in life. Looking forward to read more harriet books. 5/5 stars!

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Amazon Customer

This book

Reviewed in Australia on October 19, 2019

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I simply loved Harriet the Spy. I can't say that Harriet is my favourite character because that isn't exactly true. Even though I admire her stealth, it wasn't very nice of her to write down mean things on her friends. I tink that Harriet is quite a complex character who learns an important lesson in the story. It is intresting how things changd