Harriet the Spy

Harriet the Spy is a children's book by Louise Fitzhugh published in 1964. It won the Sequoyah Book Award. Harriet M. Welsch is an outgoing 11-year-old girl aspiring to be a spy who lives on the Upper East Side of New York City. As practice for her future career, she observes others carefully and writes everything she thinks in a notebook. Her nurse, Catherine Golly (known to Harriet as Ole Golly), has encouraged this. It is shown later in the bo... more

Harriet the Spy is a children's book by Louise Fitzhugh published in 1964. It won the Sequoyah Book Award. Harriet M. Welsch is an outgoing 11-year-old girl aspiring to be a spy who lives on the Upper East Side of New York City. As practice for her future career, she observes others carefully and writes everything she thinks in a notebook. Her nurse, Catherine Golly (known to Harriet as Ole Golly), has encouraged this. It is shown later in the book that Harriet has become so used to writing things down that she cannot think properly without a notebook. Harriet has an afternoon "spy route" which covers her classmates, friends, and neighborhood. Neighbors whom she observes include Harrison Withers, a bachelor with twenty-six cats; the Robinsons, a very wealthy but boring couple; Mrs. Agatha K. Plumber, an indolent divorcee; the Dei Santis, an Italian immigrant family which runs a grocery store; and the Dei Santis' deliveryman, Little Joe Curry, who has a habit of stealing food from the... less