Harriet the Spy

Title: Harriet the Spy
Author: Louise Fitzhugh
ISBN: 0440416795

Other Books in Series: The Long Summer, Sport

Plot Summary: Harriet is 11 years old, the precocious daughter of well-to-do parents growing up in Manhattan in the early sixties. Her best friend, Sport, has become an adult before his time in his efforts to run life for himself and his struggling writer father. Janie, Harriet's best female friend, experiments with various chemical solutions in an effort to shock her overly jovial mother. All three resist efforts to make them conform to societal norms, particularly the girls, who have less interest than their peers in being "feminine." In addition to taking notes on her classmates, parents, cook, maid, and live-in caretaker, a stern woman she nicknames Ole Golly, Harriet has what she calls her regular "spy route": a motley collection of people she observes covertly, for no other reason but that she finds them interesting. However, Harriet's carefully constructed double life is about to come to an end. After Ole Golly and her new boyfriend take Harriet out for a night on the town, Harriet's outraged parents fire her on the spot; she subsequently marries the boyfriend and moves to Canada. She is discovered in the house of one of her regular spyees and sent packing, never to return again. To make matters even worse, Harriet's classmates discover and read her diary, an event which turns even Sport and Janie against her. Harriet must now figure out how to live without the woman who was her main support, conform to her parents' social expectations, deal with changes in her routine - and, most importantly, mend fences with her two best friends.