In 1960s America there weren’t many mysteries solved by powerful female detectives. The choice was between Nancy Drew (who was often overshadowed by the Hardy Boys) and Harriet M. Welsch, better known as Harriet the Spy. It was hard not to like Harriet or to laugh at the whimsical quips she would jot down in her iconic notebook like: “MY MOTHER IS ALWAYS SAYING PINKY WHITEHEAD’S WHOLE PROBLEM IS HIS MOTHER. DOES HIS MOTHER HATE HIM? IF I HAD HIM I’D HATE HIM.” Looking back, those stories were read with childhood fascination and an attention span that rarely roamed beyond the immediate entertainment value; but as an adult it becomes clearer how these two seemingly similar characters were actually illustrating a shifting view in culture in regards to the role of women and in children and children’s literature as a whole. Nancy was the polite and respectful girl next door, while Harriet was impetuous and couldn’t care less about keeping up a lady’s appearance. Nancy would solve crimes to bring closure to the mystery and the perpetrators to justice, Harriet did so for no other reason than the thrill and delinquent pleasure of doing what wasn’t supposed to be done by “good little girls”. Harriet wrote about her adventures and the people and places in her Manhattan setting with a derisiveness that was negative and arrogant yet so refreshingly hilarious that you are forced to laugh and nod your head in agreement. Not surprisingly, her against-the-grain attitude has had some people in a frenzy since her first adventure was published in 1964 and led to her being one of the most-banned and challenged literary characters of the last half century. The book debuted on a 1964 list of “The Year’s Best Juveniles” in The New York Times Book Review. One reviewer in 1965 called the book “a brilliantly written, unsparing realistic story, a superb portrait of an extraordinary child” and another found that it “captures the feelings, thoughts and situations of a modern city child with remarkable clarity and dimension”. It won a Sequoyah Book Award in 1967 and, in 2005, ex-CIA officer Lindsay Moran cited the series of books as an inspiration for her career. Anita Silvey, author of 100 Best Books for Children, stated that Harriet was controversial in part because she was a flawed character. There were critics drawn to her charm, but other critics hated the book. Some schools even banned it. Harriet saw what she saw and spoke her mind. She even threw temper tantrums and had to visit a psychiatrist. Such subversive (yet completely relatable behavior) was not to be tolerated and certainly not endorsed. Along with Are You There God?, Blubber, and Where the Sidewalk Ends, the book was challenged at a 1983 school board meeting in Xenia, Ohio. Opponents viewed it as encouraging children to be disrespectful, teaching children to “lie, spy, talk back, and curse.” Kathleen Horning, the director of the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, reflects on the “tomboy story”. “There was a whole genre called the ‘tomboy story’ where a girl rebels in that way, but at the end everything is wonderful because she really is a girl and she gets very feminine,” remembers Horning. She was a tomboy who didn’t want to reform. Later on, she realized she was a lesbian. What does that have to do with Harriet the Spy? “A lot”, says Horning. The book’s author, Louise Fitzhugh, was also gay, and although Harriet’s sexuality is never referenced or hinted at in any way in the book, her clothes and bravado sent a message to some kids who felt different and didn’t know why. Many lesbians, from the 1960s to today, have publically identified with Harriet due to her being an “outsider” dressing like a boy. Opponents claim that Fitzhugh was secretly pushing a gay agenda through use of characters like the “Boy with the Purple Socks,” arguing that he was gay for no other reason than the color purple being associated with the gay community. Harriet’s friend, Sport, is also considered counterculture from 1960s gender norms due to the fact that he cooks, cleans, and carries out other household tasks due to his absentee mother and stay-at-home father. Horning added that, “If you were growing up in the sixties when you really didn’t have any other people like you; Harriet was it. What the book told us is that we could be ourselves and survive.” It’s easy to see why some adults would be concerned with her rebellious nature, but when they make claims of seditious commentary based solely on the color of someone’s socks it becomes crystal clear that some people have far too much time on their hands. It’s a book, after all, but talk about reading between the lines. If it weren’t for Harriet, the strong female leads of the 1990s and new millennium simply wouldn’t have existed. Buffy, for example, was the most popular and most comparable character to directly result from Harriet and was as beloved by girls in the ‘90s as Harriet was by their parents. Therein lies a perfect bridge between the generations and source of open and honest discourse. That’s what good literature does- entertain first and encourage discussion later. It’s a lesson some just can’t seem to comprehend. For more information on the Banned Books Awareness and Reading for Knowledge project and the complete list of titles covered, please visit the official website at http://bbark.deepforestproductions.com/ Sources: Wikipedia, American Library Association, NPR, Daily Mail, Christian Science Monitor © 2014 R. Wolf Baldassarro/Deep Forest Productions
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