Harriet the Spy
by Louise Fitzhugh
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Book Reviews of Harriet the Spy
Book Review: Disappointed
Summary: 1 Stars
From the many reviews here it seems this is a love-it-or-hate-it book. My kids, who have always loved to read, read it in elementary school 10 or 12 years ago and did not enjoy it. Having recently read it myself, I now understand why. There is no warmth here. So much of the book seems to be social commentary specific to a particular time and place and really aimed at adults, not children. Harriet is an obnoxious kid raised by oblivious, absentee parents and a strange nanny. Referred to inexplicably as Ole Golly, the nanny, the only real guiding force in Harriet's life since birth, leaves when Harriet is 11 with hardly a backward glance. She tells Harriet, basically, to get over it. Of course Harriet falls apart and acts out, desperately needing love and attention. But I admit that she is so unlikable that when her angry classmates dump ink all over her, I was cheering them on. The other children in the book provide the only consequences Harriet receives for her horrible behavior. Considering her actions at school (including whacking off another girl's hair and writing commentary about her friends' parents for the school newspaper, which unbelievably, actually gets printed) the lack of backlash from other parents makes no sense at all. Harriet learns absolutely nothing over the course of the book, except that she can do whatever she wants and in the end, get away with it. I honestly do not see the appeal of this book.Book Review: wicked good book
Summary: 5 Stars
skip the rental. buy the book. harriet the spy is a classic and its cynical herione, harriet m. welsch, is eternal. the book is dated (harriet wanders around sketchy neighborhoods in manhattan and is encouraged to do so by her eccentric nanny, ole golly, and has to ask when she wants to eat with her parents) and it has been banned at points, but i command you to read it anyway. harriet as you might imagine is a spy, because ole golly said that writing everything down would help her be a better writer. harriet is a smart, prickly eleven year only daughter of young distant parents. she is well to do, lives on the upper east side, and although she sees sad things and meets all sorts of people during her escapades she is too immature to understand her position in life. ole golly is basically her mother figure and reads a lot of philosophy books. she also quotes things at harriet, which mean something if you look into them, but to harriet they're nothing. anyway, harriet's notebook gets stolen and she is ostracized by her friends and misunderstood by the school and her parents. the fact that her only authority figure, ole golly, gets married to george waldenstein, doesn't help matters. harriet does eventually get her life back and gets more mature due to a letter from ole golly telling her to tell a white lie. her relationship with her parents improves a bit (the long secret is the sequel to this.)Book Review: The Little Spy
Summary: 4 Stars
If you were to look at Harriet M. Welsh you would see a fairly ordinary girl, but she is not. She is a spy. Every day after school she takes her notebook and goes on a route that takes her through the city. She makes stops on this route and every stop she records everything that she sees, hears, and does in her notebook. She not only does that, but in particular she looks in on people's lives at the certain stops that she makes, in other words spying. She has never been caught. Harriet takes her notebook everywhere with her and records everything. One day Harriet goes to school and discovers that when she looks to find her notebook it is not with her but her best friends. They read everything that she has written in the notebook and some of the things are about them, but many of things aren't very nice. Suddenly she feels that the entire classroom has turned against her, and there is nothing she can do. Will the great spy Harriet M. Welsh somehow find a way to sneak out of this corner? You will have to read this book to find out.I think that this book is stuffed with great details and descriptions of the world that the characters are living in and of the characters themselves. It had an ending that was unexpected and very unique in its own way. I think that this book overall was wonderful and I highly recommend it to all that are capable of reading.
Book Review: Complex, fascinating book
Summary: 5 Stars
I absolutely LOVED this book when I was a child. I think like many other reviewers, I responded to the book because I identified with Harriet as a somewhat odd, intellectual, socially awkward child. Harriet was my heroine because of her perseverance and her integrity, and her detached sense of being an observer of the world. In the 60's and 70's, such complex portaits of the world of children were unusual (Judy Blume came a little later, and was also a favorite). I started eating tomato sandwiches every day for lunch, formed a spy club with my friends (I was always Harriet, of course), bought a composition notebook and took notes in BIG BLOCK LETTERS, just like Harriet.
One caveat: Reading the book again as an adult with my young daughter, it seems much more negative than I'd remembered. Harriet lacks empathy or compassion for the feelings of her friends; her parents are neglectful and incompetent; the departure of her beloved nurse, Ole Golly, seems much more intimately connected to her later troubles. My daughter asked pointed questions about these issues. Thankfully, the detached parenting portrayed in the book (not only by Harriet's parents, but also those of her friends) is dated today. On the other hand, the portrayals of the characters are still as vivid and lively as I'd remembered, and the book is still very very funny.
Book Review: An Exciting Book that Happens in New York City
Summary: 5 Stars
The book is a novel about a girl named Harriet and her two best friends Sport and Beth Ellen. Harriet is a spy. She wants to write about everyone. She writes about her friends and classmates too. But Harriet loses her notebook and all her friends read all the good and bad stuff she wrote about them. Will she ever see her notebook again? Well, I am not going to tell you so read the book your self to find out!
It all happens in New York City on the East side in a fancy apartment building. I think Louise Fitzhugh is trying to say that you should not write about your friends in a mean way or maybe they will not be your friends any more. I love this book and I hope you like it too. I like the middle where everything exciting happens but I will not tell you because it gives it away the ending. But I will say that it is one of my favorite books and that some of the entries are so funny. Here is an example: "I bet that lady weighs 100 pounds and is a super model and feels terrible with not that munch food!"
And that's all I am going to tell you! This book is 300 pages so I think that people between the ages of 7-100 who love spies would like this book the most!
by Elizabeth