Harriet the Spy 5/8
Chapters 9, 10, 11,12 Reading Guide
Welcome back!
For obvious reasons I am calling this part of the book the boiling point. Emotions bubble over and Harriet’s already sideways life takes a turn for the worst.
We already know Harriet to be protective of her inner thoughts, her routine. But up until now she’s had Old Golly to balance out her secretivity with honestly. With her gone, Harriet is has lost all grounding. She forgets herself in front of her parents causing alarm about her secretive writing. She gets caught on her spy route, she behaves rudely with her friends, and this all comes together in the worst possible way. Her whole class, this means her friends Janie and Sport too, find and read her private and rather judgmental thoughts about each of them.
The worst thing that could possibly happen happened. The only thing worse, was the aftermath.
Interestingly, the part where all the kids read Harriet’s notebook outloud doesn’t have Harriet in it. Do you remember where she was? On page 184, the narrator has Harriet in bed while the rest of the class still at the park. I say interesting because up to this point Harriet has been such a focus of this story so much so that the narrator voice and Harriet’s practically become one! And here we have a major moment in the story and it doesn’t involve her at all. Why would the author chose that? To get out of Harriet’s point of view so we can sympathize with the hurt feelings of the other kids? It is to show how alienated Harriet is at this moment? Neither? Both?
Harriet comes back home from school after a nasty experience of exclusion where the narrator says these interesting lines, “At first she didn’t listen to it and then she heard what she was feeling.” The deep hurt she feels become anger towards literally everything. In pages 198-99, her mother being the most reasonable we’ve seen her, tries to get her daughter to recognize that she has hurt people, and her own hurt comes from that.
Harriet hasn’t developed enough maturity yet to take responsibility for her actions. Does she still think she is an anonymous spy and not a real person who has real impact on the world around her? Or more importantly, has what Harriet done really so bad? This is a BIG ONE. And one I’d like to focus on more next week when we see how this story ends. For this reason I am including less questions below so that you may really think about this one. All she told was the truth, right? Where is the line between honest and brutally honest?
Next week we’ll be finishing up this book and talk more about the impact this book has both now and when it first came out. But for now, I’ll leave you with a few discussion starter questions. I’m not looking for “correct” answers as much as I’m hoping you will linger on some lines and spend a moment longer thinking about this book. And if you do nothing else this week, SHARE THEM IN THE COMMENTS!
Easier-
What did the Robinson’s get delivered to their house? How is this object described?
Can you name a couple of emotions Harriet has felt recently?
Harder-
What did the delivery guy think of the delivery? How can you tell?
Why doesn’t Harriet think to apologize? Would you?
Hardest-
What could be a deeper meaning of Harriet thinking about being an onion?
Why do you think Harriet is so oblivious to that fact that no one wants to sit next to her at lunch? Why is she so confused when she overhears the spy club talking about “her”? Why doesn’t Harriet know its HER they are talking about?