Harriet the Spy (Collins Modern Classics) - Softcover

Fitzhugh, Louise

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007155026 ISBN 13: 9780007155026

Publisher: HarperCollinsChildren’sBooks, 2004

Synopsis

First published by HarperCollinsUS in 1964, this classic children’s novel has sold over 4 million copies and was awarded the New York Times Outstanding Book Award.

Sixth-grader Harriet attends school on the New York's Upper East Side along with her two best pals, Sport, the jock, and Janie, the mad scientist. After school every day, she takes her notebook and proceeds through her spy route. Climbing on milk crates and hoisting herself up dumbwaiters, Harriet observes the rich lady who never gets out of bed; the man with twenty-five cats and the Italian family who runs a grocery store. She writes brutally warts-and-all notes on them all. Harriet's downfall is that she also writes down her thoughts about people she actually knows. After a game in the park when her notebook is knocked out of her hands and read by her classmates, Harriet's deepest thoughts are revealed and she is quickly ostracised by all her classmates – even the boy with the Purple Socks – who form the Spycatcher's Club to punish her. After her parents find out what's happened, Harriet receives a final, crushing blow. She is no longer allowed to take notes – her parents, her teacher and even the cook search her every day for a contraband notebook. Harriet's only consolation is the love and the wise advice of her nanny who manages to get her through this difficult period in her life.

A classic in the US where it was first published and a major motion film from Paramount, Harriet the Spy is a beloved book throughout the world.

About this title

Review

More than 30 years before it was made into a movie, Harriet the Spy was a groundbreaking book: its unflinchingly honest portrayal of childhood problems and emotions changed children's literature forever. Happily, neither Fitzhugh's style has dated nor her themes become obsolete, and it is still recognized as one of the finest children's novels around. The fascinating story centres around an intensely curious and intelligent girl, Harriet, who literally spies on people and writes about them in her secret notebook, trying to make sense of life's absurdities. When her classmates find her notebook and read her painfully blunt comments about them, Harriet finds herself a lonely outcast. Fitzhugh's writing is astonishingly vivid, real and engaging, and Harriet, by no means a typical, lovable heroine, is one of literature's most unforgettable characters. (Ages 8 to 12)

Review

A""New York Public Library's 100 Great Children's Books 100 Years selection
"This is the book that made me want to be a writer. [Harriet] was the first fictional female character I ever came across who privileged her own truth above the expectations put on her as a little girl." --Anna Holmes for Bookish.com
"I don't know of a better novel about the costs and rewards of being a truth teller, nor of any book that made more readers of my generation want to become fiction writers. I love the story of Harriet so much I feel as if I lived it." --Jonathan Franzen, author of "Freedom" and "The Corrections"
""Harriet the Spy" bursts with life."--"School Library Journal
"
"The characterizations are marvelously shrewd."--"The Bulletin"

A" "New York Public Library's 100 Great Children's Books 100 Years selection
"This is the book that made me want to be a writer. [Harriet] was the first fictional female character I ever came across who privileged her own truth above the expectations put on her as a little girl." Anna Holmes for Bookish.com
I don t know of a better novel about the costs and rewards of being a truth teller, nor of any book that made more readers of my generation want to become fiction writers. I love the story of Harriet so much I feel as if I lived it. Jonathan Franzen, author of "Freedom" and "The Corrections"
""Harriet the Spy" bursts with life." "School Library Journal
"
"The characterizations are marvelously shrewd." "The Bulletin""

A New York Public Library's 100 Great Children's Books 100 Years selection

"This is the book that made me want to be a writer. [Harriet] was the first fictional female character I ever came across who privileged her own truth above the expectations put on her as a little girl." --Anna Holmes for Bookish.com

"I don't know of a better novel about the costs and rewards of being a truth teller, nor of any book that made more readers of my generation want to become fiction writers. I love the story of Harriet so much I feel as if I lived it." --Jonathan Franzen, author of Freedom and The Corrections

"Harriet the Spy bursts with life."--School Library Journal

"The characterizations are marvelously shrewd."--The Bulletin

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollinsChildren’sBooks
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0007155026
• ISBN 13: 9780007155026
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288