Book Review: Harriet the Spy

Book: Harriet the Spy (Harriet the Spy book #1) by Louise Fitzhugh

Cover Illustration by Louise Fitzhugh

Edition: Paperback

Description:

Harriet M. Welsch is a spy. In her notebook, she writes down everything she knows about everyone, even her classmates and her best friends. Then Harriet loses track of her notebook, and it ends up in the wrong hands. Before she can stop them, her friends have read the always truthful, sometimes awful things she’s written about each of them. Will Harriet find a way to put her life and her friendships back together?





Rating: 5 stars

Review:

Harriet the Spy centered on Harriet (or shall I say Harriet M. Welsch) who is an interesting and peculiar girl. She considers herself to be a spy in the making. She enjoys finding information and writing everything down in her notebook. From her family and friends to anyone in the neighborhood, she quietly eavesdrop on conversations while also observing and makes notes of everything. What she writes in her notebook can be a little mean but it's her personal thoughts and observations.

Her spying doesn't always go as plan because Harriet once got caught. It was interesting because she had a fear that at some point she would get caught especially in how she went about spying on this particular person. But she was so intrigued that the fear didn't stop her from wanting to know more. But eventually she did get caught and luckily, the only thing that happened was she was put out. But it did frighten her a bit and she she never went back. She's also lucky that her parents weren't contacted or she would have found herself in trouble.

At this point in the story, it felt like Harriet was taking a lot of chances and sort of acting out because she was unsettled or unmoored. It was after her nanny Catherine Golly (or Ole Golly as Harriet called her) had been unexpectedly fired due to a misunderstanding with Harriet's parents. And to make matters even worse, while she was outside playing with her best friends Janie Gibbs and Simon "Sport" Rocque and other classmates, her notebook which had fallen on the ground at some point was picked up by one of her classmates. By the time she realized that she had dropped her notebook and went looking for it, it was too late. Her friends and classmates had already started reading it and they didn't like what Harriet had written about them.

Everything changed rather quickly for Harriet, she was ostracized and bullied by her friends and classmates. And because her notebook was the center of the controversy, she was no longer allowed to write in it at school. Her parents didn't seem to understand her or her desire to write everything down. It was all starting to feel like a powder keg of emotions.

What I found interesting is that instead of Harriet shying away from everything, she started to push back against her friends and classmates with a little bullying of her own. Yes, it wasn't the best way to handle things but she probably didn't know how to process everything that was happening. I do wish at the beginning when her friends and classmates had started reading her notebook, Harriet had asked them if they all had journals or notebooks? And if so, how would they feel if their friends and classmates had read their personal thoughts? Perhaps that would have made it easier for them to relate to her and not become so angry and mad at her. But these are kids and they probably wouldn't think that way.

With things so out of control, can Harriet find her way out of this situation and make up with friends? I feel like the ending had a natural outcome. And I think Harriet receiving some much needed advice in a letter really helped sort things for her. This was a pretty good read and Harriet is an interesting weird little girl. Throughout the story you get a lot of insight into her as well as from her spying and her notes from her notebook. You also learn a little about the other characters as well but the main focus in on Harriet. I'm very interested in reading more books from this series and I want to see if Harriet's spying will get her into any more trouble.