Harriet the Spy 3/8

Chapters 5, 6, 7: Reading Guide

Hello again. So glad to have you back!

In this reading guide we’ll be covering chapters 5, 6, and 7 of Harriet the Spy. You can expect your usual discussion questions at the end, as well as a summary of events. But more importantly we’ll talk about a narrative form that allows the reader to get into the mind of a character. Hmmm… What could something like that be called? How could it possibly be used? More on that in a minute!

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These chapters are such a wild ride. The Town playing, mischievous, hard-headed Harriet has been through a lot. First she makes a stand against dancing school and seems very alienated from her parents. The author gives us that impression from this line here. “They both looked at Harriet as though she were a curiosity put on television to entertain them.”(page 84). A line like this reveals a heartbreaking truth about the nature of their relationship. Harriet’s parents don’t understand her at all and poor Harriet tries to defend her interests already knowing that she will never be understood. This sentence seems like a passing line, but seeing just how her parents don’t get her, we can more fully appreciate how Harriet can spend so much time in her own head.

Then, after discovering her nanny has a boyfriend, Harriet (naturally) follows them and learns several surprising things about the person she thought she knew so well. Rather than events, details, and records of a person, which she does on her spy routes, she has started to wonder about how people feel. And even more so, how the way people feel can affect that way they act. We get the sense that maybe Harriet hasn’t spent a lot of time thinking about other people’s emotions. Harriet finally gets to meet this boyfriend face to face which leads to an unscheduled outing, and marriage proposal, a firing, AND a resignation. Phew. That’s a lot.

In these chapters we are given more space into the internal lives of people, especially Harriet herself who is left feeling sad and lonely after