Harriet the Spy
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First edition
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| Author | Louise Fitzhugh |
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| Genre | Children's spy novel |
| Publisher | Harper & Row |
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Publication date
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1964 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 298 (first ed.) |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 301132 |
| LC Class | PZ7.F5768 Har |
| Followed by | The Long Secret |
Harriet the Spy is a children's novel written and illustrated by Louise Fitzhugh that was published in 1964. It has been called "a milestone in children's literature" and a "classic". In the U.S. it ranked number 12 book for kids and number 17 all-time children's novel on two lists generated in 2012.
Eleven-year-old Harriet M. Welsch is an aspiring writer who lives in New York City's Upper East Side. A precocious and enthusiastic girl, Harriet enjoys writing and hopes to become a writer. Encouraged by her nanny, Catherine "Ole Golly," Harriet carefully observes others and writes her thoughts down in a notebook as practice for her future career, to which she dedicates her life. She follows an afternoon "spy route", during which she observes her classmates, friends, and people who reside in her neighborhood. One subject that Harriet observes is a local store, where the younger son Fabio cannot make anything of his career in contrast to the hardworking and loyal Bruno, and where the stock boy Joe Curry or "Little Joe" is eating in the storeroom and feeding homeless kids instead of working.
Harriet's best friends are Simon "Sport" Rocque, a serious boy who wants to be a CPA or a ball player, and Janie Gibbs, who wants to be a scientist. Harriet's enemies in her class are Marion Hawthorne, the teacher's pet and self-appointed queen bee of her class, and Marion's best friend and second-in-command, Rachel Hennessy.
Harriet enjoys having structure in her life. For example, she regularly eats tomato sandwiches and adamantly refuses to consume other types of sandwiches. However, Harriet's life changes abruptly after Ole Golly's suitor, Mr. Waldenstein, proposes and she accepts; when Mrs. Welsch exclaims, "You can't leave, what will we do without you?!" Ole Golly replies that she had planned to leave soon because she believes Harriet is old enough to care for herself. Harriet is crushed by the loss of her nanny, to whom she was very close. Her mother and father, who have been largely absentee parents during Ole Golly's tenure as nanny due to their obligations to work and social life, are at a loss to understand Harriet's feelings and are of little comfort to her.
Later at school, during her period game of tag, Harriet loses her notebook. Her classmates find it and are appalled at her brutally honest documentation of her opinions of them. For example, in her notebook she compares Sport to a "little old woman" for his continual worrying about his father. The students form a "Spy Catcher Club" in which they think up ways to make Harriet's life miserable, such as stealing her lunch, passing nasty notes about her in class, and spilling ink on her, but that backfires when Harriet slaps Marion in revenge, leaving a blue hand print on her face.
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