READIN: Harriet the Spy

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Harriet the Spy

Posts about Harriet the Spy

READIN started out as a place for me to keep track of what I am reading, and to learn (slowly, slowly) how to design a web site.

There has been some mission drift here and there, but in general that's still what it is. Some of the main things I write about here are reading books, listening to (and playing) music, and watching the movies. Also I write about the work I do with my hands and with my head; and of course about bringing up Sylvia.

The site is a bit of a work in progress. New features will come on-line now and then; and you will occasionally get error messages in place of the blog, for the forseeable future. Cut me some slack, I'm just doing it for fun! And if you see an error message you think I should know about, please drop me a line. READIN source code is PHP and CSS, and available on request, in case you want to see how it works.

See my reading list for what I'm interested in this year.

READIN has been visited approximately 236,737 times since October, 2007.

Friday, November 16th, 2007

Tonight for bedtime stories, Sylvia and I started on Harriet the Spy, by Louise Fitzhugh. Looks interesting! -- I read this book, probably twice or three times, when I was 9 or 10 years old; I remember really liking it but not too much about it. For instance I had totally forgotten the class differentials in the book -- perhaps I just didn't understand them as a kid -- but already in the first few pages we are seeing what an important role class will play, as wealthy Harriet is brought out to Far Rockaway to meet her nanny's mother and she and Sport seem totally alien to the situation.

posted evening of November 16th, 2007: Respond
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Saturday, November 17th, 2007

Tonight, Sylvia started to pick up on the class thing in Harriet the Spy -- first noticing that Ole Golly is not Harriet's parent, and asking me to explain about nannies; then when Harriet was talking to their cook Sylvia said "They're rich, right?" And that came up again when one of Harriet's classmates was dropped off by a limosine. -- It seems like it's a pretty obviously major feature of the book, and kudos to Sylvia for picking up on it, but I'm wondering a little why my memory of the book would include none of this -- it's all just a fun story of Harriet running around spying on people and then having some trouble when she gets discovered. Was I dense? Hmm...

posted evening of November 17th, 2007: Respond
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Wednesday, November 28th, 2007

🦋 Harriet and Janie are both rich

After I was finished reading to Sylvia the other night, I put down Harriet the Spy thinking, the class differences stuff that seemed so important early in the book has kind of faded. But I don't think it has for Sylvia as she is listening to the story, as witness tonight when Harriet went over to Janie's house and was let in by the maid, Sylvia asks, "So... Harriet and Janie are both rich, right?" And she was very interested in the subsequent scene, where Sport's father is excited about having sold his book.

posted evening of November 28th, 2007: Respond

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