I read the new book Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh, published in 1964, when I was about 11 years old. I remembered it being a bit quirky, very different from my favorite books by Edward Eager and E. Nesbit, and never read the sequel. But the book had a big influence on me. I immediately started keeping what I called my "secret books." Now, forty-something years later I read it again. It's good writing, it's definitely quirky, but I hope a desire to let out my stormy adolescent feelings in journals is all I got from it.Harriet is not the girl I took with me in memory. Overall, I'd say Harriet M. Welsch is a selfish, indulged, naughty, bored, rude, insecure girl who lives in Manhattan. She might have OCD because she eats the same exact lunch and snack everyday and imposes on herself an inflexible personal routine of sameness. She also trespasses into people's private property, such as spying from a dumbwaiter into a strange lady's bedroom. She has no empathy to speak of. She pronounces harsh judgments on everyone, including strangers, based on their appearance or the keyhole impression she has of them. Harriet is really mean to people in writing. ("Pinky Whitehead is the most disgusting thing I ever saw," she writes.) One day her classmates and best friends get a hold of her notebook and read all the mean things she has written about them. Understandably, they ostracize her and seek revenge. You'd think Harriet might learn something, but no. After she gets caught she is even mean in person. No one teaches her how to be a better person. All the adults in the book, save her Mary Poppins-type nanny, Ole Golly, are portrayed as distracted and self-absorbed. Even the psychiatrist (!) she gets taken to by her parents is shown as nuts. And Ole Golly, who is supposedly wise because she quotes misguided humanist writers and poets off the top of her head, teaches Harriet (age 11) that anything she perceives as truth is truth, and that she should pretend to apologize to people/lie to keep the peace. In the end Harriet offhandedly and impersonally apologizes for her notebook and gets her friends back. Nothing changes. There is no character development (not like in Mary Poppins where the father finally pays some attention to his kids -- flying the kite.) I suppose the message for little kids is one of radical individualism/moral relativism, as in, follow your dream whatever it takes; truth comes from inside you. Ugh! As if kids know everything.
I don't know why people write and publish such dark, perverse books for children. It makes you wonder about the author and if she ever grew up.
I'm so disappointed.
2 comments:
Yikes! I have to agree with you. I remember being greatly influenced by this book too, but also only in the way you were - in keeping secret books. Luckily!
I remember being disappointed after seeing the movie made of the book years after I read it. She IS naughty and everything else you said! This is making me realize how careful I should be about making sure my kids read only the best books. Seriously.
Your critique of the book reminds me of how I felt about a book I was required to read for my Children's Lit. class. Seemingly harmless "Frindle" was all about moral relativism as well. How shameful of authors to sneak their agendas into books for kids. Again, yikes.
Seriously, sometimes I think we should never revisit books we loved as children. Very disappointing. This is truly a book for writers--it inspired all of us! The good news is, all that humanist business was lost on all of us, and will be lost on most kids. That's one thing, right?
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