Harriet the Spy - by Louise Fitzhugh

About the Book

Includes tributes by Judy Blume, Meg Cabot, Nick Clark, Patricia Reilly Giff, Lenore Look, Lois Lowry, Gregory Maguire, Leonard S. Marcus, Kirsten Miller, Pat Scales, Anita Silvey, Rebecca Stead, Elizabeth Winthrop, and Judy Zuckerman.

Book Synopsis

This special 50th Anniversary Edition of the classic and ground-breaking coming-of-age novel, Harriet the Spy, includes tributes by Judy Blume, Meg Cabot, Lois Lowry, Rebecca Stead, and many more, as well as a map of Harriet's New York City neighborhood and spy route and original author/editor correspondence.

Using her keen observation skills, 11-year-old Harriet M. Welsch writes down in her notebook what she considers the truth about everyone in and around her New York City neighborhood. When she loses track of her notebook, it ends up in the wrong hands, and before she can stop them, her friends read the sometimes awful things she's observed and written about each of them. How can Harriet find a way to keep her integrity and also put her life and her friendships back together?

"I don't know of a better novel about the costs and rewards of being a truth teller, nor of any book that made more readers of my generation want to become fiction writers. I love the story of Harriet so much I feel as if I lived it." --Jonathan Franzen, author of Freedom and The Corrections

Review Quotes

A New York Public Library's 100 Great Children's Books 100 Years selection

"Finding Harriet as a young writer in the mid 1960s was inspiring. It meant I wasn't the only one who wanted to tell stories about kids who were real."--JUDY BLUME

"I don't know of a better novel...that made more readers of my generation want to become fiction writers. I love the story of Harriet so much I feel as if I lived it." --JONATHAN FRANZEN, author of Freedom and The Corrections

"Harriet the Spy bursts with life."--School Library Journal

"The characterizations are marvelously shrewd."--The Bulletin

About the Author

Louise Fitzhugh (1928-1974) was born in Memphis, Tennessee. She attended Bard College, studied art in Italy and France, and continued her studies in New York at the Art Students League and at Cooper Union. Her books Harriet the Spy, The Long Secret, and Sport have been acclaimed as milestones of children's literature. These classics delight readers year after year.