Harriet the Spy

by Louise Fitzhugh

Published 1 January 1964
Harriet the Spy has a secret notebook which she fills with utterly honest jottings about her parents, her classmates, and her neighbors. Every day on her spy route, she "observes" and notes down anything of interest to her:

I bet that lady with the cross-eye looks in the mirror and lust feels terrible.

Pinky Whitehead will never change. Does his mother hate him? If I had him I'd hate him.

If Marion Hawthorne doesn't watch out she's going to grow up into a lady Hitler.

But when Harriet's notebook is found by her schoolmates, their anger and retaliation and Harriet's unexpected responses explode in a hilarious way.

--back cover

Through a series of family disagreements over her seven-year-old brother's efforts to become a dancer and her own determination to be a lawyer, eleven-year-old Emma realizes that it is up to children to take the initiative since parents rarely change.