Harriet the Spy

Harriet the Spy was groundbreaking, pointing the way ahead fora strand of realistic children's fiction tackling the issues of growing up and adolescence. The heroine of Fitzhugh's story is eleven-year-old Harriet Welsch, who starts a journai packed with her thoughts on family, friends, school classmates, and a succession of neighbors who Harriet secretly watches on her "spy route." Harriet's observations are generally entertaining, but not always complimentary. Apart from her desire to write and become a spy, Harriet also keeps a journal because she is lonely. She lives in New York, in Manhattan's affluent Upper East Side. Her busy parents are rarely around and she is looked after by a nanny, Ole Golly. Harriet experiences the ultimate disaster feared by all diarists when her notebook is discovered, and her friends read what she has written about them. They establish the Spy Catcher Club and set about exacting revenge on Harriet for her spiteful comments. 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.