Book 10: Harriet The Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

I read this book for the first time a decade ago and immediately fell in love with it enough to buy my current copy. This was actually banned in my elementary school library, along with Matilda by Roald Dahl! I was 10 when the Harriet the Spy and Matilda films came out, and they were wildly popular in my class. On average, everyone in that school lagged behind in reading and the teachers complained about how irritating it was to help us (gee, I wonder why everyone struggled reading); so when we asked if the library could carry the books, the teachers told us no and that we should watch the movies instead because then we didn't bother them!  

Even though I was 30 the first time I read this book (and Matilda, which I appreciated but not nearly as much as Harriet The Spy), I've reread it at least 4 times since then. It's like I'm making up for lost time. Harriet is a difficult character, she insults people for their appearances constantly but a more considerate protagonist would make for a very different, perhaps less memorable book. This is a flawed book and that's part of its appeal, it's honest about how flawed it is. It also has strong themes about wealth and poverty that Harriet doesn't pick up on because she's a wealthy 11-year-old, which her best friend tells her to her face. 

I don't think I would've liked this book as much if I'd read it as a kid, I would have compared it to the film. I really liked books written in the '60s back then since the writing was simple and direct, they were more slice-of-life rather than action and adventure, and the protagonists' friends were their friends due to proximity, as opposed to actively befriending children with shared interests which was a totally alien concept to me at the time. If I read this book back then and the film didn't exist, I probably would've loved it. 
 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/232576.Harriet_the_Spy 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Book 32: New Catholic Women: A Contemporary Challenge to Traditional Religious Authority by Mary Jo Weaver

I first discovered this book about a year ago when I explored the Loras College library. As a rule, I won't purchase a copy of a book that I haven't read, but this was a rare exception. After skimming it for around a half hour, I knew that I needed my own copy! This was my first time reading it. What's so significant about this book is Weaver wrote about the development of Catholic feminism while it was happening; I haven't encountered any other books that did this. She compared Catholic feminist theologians to each other during their careers, as well as the ongoing impacts of the Goddess movement. I have a few books that treat this period in the mid-80's as history, but Weaver was an analyst of this movement in real time.  My two main experiences while reading this book: 1) I know what happens after its publication, I know where the careers of these theologians went and I know that most of them are now dead. Weaver writes with a few vague predictions of the future,...
Read more

Book 1: Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Image
Up until middle school, everyone in my class hated studying history. Our textbooks were hand-me-downs from a local high school and all we were taught were names & dates of battles. And then we got a new middle school history teacher who taught us about how people lived throughout history, and we all loved it. In 7th grade we learned about the Civil War, and Mrs. Brenneman explained the significance of the book Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. I asked if we were going to read it as a class, and she said no, it was too difficult for middle schoolers.  I was determined to read it anyway since it was so historically important, and I found a decrepit copy in my mother's basement - I have no idea why she had it. She told me not to read it because people would think we were poor if they saw me reading a book barely held together by old tape, so I snuck it to school. When my reading teacher saw me physically struggling with the book, she bought me the copy t...
Read more

Book 31: Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence by Rosemary Curb & Nancy Manahan

I first became aware of this book in college; I was reading any feminist tomes I could get my hands on and several mentioned Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence . No copies were available anywhere, so when an episode of The L Word depicted a copy (with a historically inaccurate cover) I had to laugh at the idea that I had to go to Vancouver to get one! Despite attending a Catholic college, I was so anti-Christian at the time that I probably wouldn't have given this book the open mind it deserves. The first time I managed to get a copy from a library was around 2016 or 2017, and I bought my secondhand copy shortly afterwards. This is probably my third time reading the book. This is important history on the women's liberation movement, the Roman Catholic Church, Wicca/Paganism, and queer organizations/communities. What struck me reading this time was that the vast majority of the women in this book would be around the average age of a woman religious now: 88-ish. The few I Googled to ...
Read more