Harriet the Spy is the story of a girl named Harriet. Harriet believes she is a spy. She observes others and writes everything she sees and what she thinks about what she sees in her notebook. She is compulsive about writing down everything, including negative things about friends and family. We watch as Harriet goes through losing her nanny, deals with her parents that aren't around much, and goes to a private school with only a few students. When Harriet loses track of her notebook and it ends up in the wrong hands, her life is changed in a very tough way.
This book is a classic for very certain reasons. Harriet is a very intelligent girl with not so nice opinions at times. But what child has good opinions all the time? However, Megan and I had a lot of conversations about why Harriet wasn't a great role model. She liked to throw fits. At one point in the story she uses bad language to her parents. And the spying thing... there is a different between being observant and invading the privacy of others.
However, we learned many lessons from Harriet. It seemed that the children that took her notebook had no consequences for stealing and being hateful. Yes, Harriet wrote some mean things, but they were her private thoughts. I guess since Harriet didn't respect the privacy of others, the lesson is that her privacy shouldn't have been respected in return. That isn't a lesson I want my daughter to internalize. Diaries, journals, these contain private thoughts that no one should invade casually. The children were hurt by what Harriet wrote, but they had no business reading something that didn't belong to them. Harriet wasn't spying on the kids before they took her notebook as much as she was just observing them when they were around her. She was invading the privacy of others, even to the point of breaking into a house, but the ended up with consequences at times. The kids that stole her notebook never faced any consequences except the ones Harriet doled out in revenge.
Harriet writes down her feelings as a way to verbalize them, to get them out, instead of letting them fester inside her. When she is forbidden to use her notebook, the anger and bitterness inside of her that had been building came out in ways that most today would deem violent. She also basically was dealing with severe depression. However, her family finally sees that she is a special, intelligent girl with a gift for writing, and step in to help her.
Megan enjoyed Harriet, because they both share a love for writing. Megan's favorite treat is to be given a composition book in which to write stories and draw pictures. I think she related to Harriet a bit, though she was shocked at Harriet's behavior and the mean things the main character wrote in her notebook.
Harriet the Spy is a book that I hesitated to read to Megan because it is a bit angry and negative. It shows parents that aren't really there for their daughter. It shows a class division that I don't think many kids catch... but Megan did. She caught that the family had a cook and a nanny and the parents were gone a lot. She caught that there was only a few children in the class, and this was observed by a child that is homeschooled! I wasn't sure Megan was ready for Harriet, but decided to read it anyway.
I think it did Megan some good to see that other people like to write and read and express themselves in that way. Harriet could be quite humorous, such as when she was attempting to portray an onion. Overall, I am glad we read Harriet the Spy together, where I could help explain and discuss some of the touchier topics. I also edited the cursing at the parents scene where she was yelling at her parents. Censorship? Well, I'm the mom and can make that decision.
There is a second Harriet book. Our library has it. I think it will stay there for awhile until Megan is more mature, if at all. While I don't mind books that are more secular, I worry that Harriet crossed the line from what I think is soul-nurturing. She wasn't exactly a positive roll model, even with her intelligence and talent. In fact, she was mostly mean and gossipy. I think we'll look at other characters to delve into for our reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment