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Nearly sixty years after the publication of Harriet the Spy (Harper, 1964) the book remains as fresh as ever, so it’s not surprising that Harriet’s author was just as captivating. In her new, thoroughly researched biography, Sometimes You Have to Lie: The Life and Times of Louise Fitzhugh, Renegade Author...
Retired children’s librarians don’t fade away. They become consultants, and teach. When I’m not taking classes myself, I am teaching two courses about children’s books to older adults who participate in Osher, the Lifelong Learning Institute, based at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. My students are mostly grandparents. Some are...
“Sometimes you have to lie. But to yourself you must always tell the truth.”—Ole Golly from Harriet the Spy by Louise FitzhughJune is Pride Month (whether or not the White House recognizes it) and LGBTQIA folx and their allies are holding their rainbow flags — of various stripes — high....
Fans of Harriet the Spy must click here. Seriously. You will not be disappointed.Thanks to Friend-of-the-Horn-Book Rich Michelson for sharing this special image with us (used by permission of Laura Morehead, another big thank-you). According to Rich: "The story behind the picture is only that it was found among Louise...
Unlike our lucky essayists (starting with Kathleen T. Horning), I never read Harriet the Spy as a child. Sure, it was around — I remember Susan Walley doing a book report on Harriet in the sixth grade — but I had learned by then what finks would do to boys...
She doesn't look a day over eleven, but this year Harriet the Spy, first published in 1964, is turning 50. To celebrate, The Horn Book Magazine's May/June issue features thoughts, musings, riffs, and remembrances about the girl spy. Click on the tag Harriet at 50 to see what Jack Gantos,...
When I was a boy, I knew I was sneaky, but I didn’t think of myself as a “lowlife sneak” until my mother called me one with such disgust in her voice I actually did feel ashamed.I was babysitting at the next-door neighbor’s house when my mother looked out her...
This is the story of how I came to read and know and love Harriet the Spy. It is also a harrowing account of my brush with danger, in which my ten-year-old self stared fear in the face.When I was nine or so, I started having trouble with words. I...
Although I grew up in a household of women who read, my reading education is a bit unusual in the academic world. In the in-law apartment my dad built for her, my grandmother lined the custom-made bookshelves with thick volumes of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books. In these pages, I first...