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July Discussion
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From: Kathleen Horning <horning>
Date: Mon, 01 Jul 1996 11:59:00 -0600
Thanks to all who have contributed to our discussion of Frances Temple's books. Please feel free to continue adding comments as we move into July.
As we announced in a previous message, our discussion topic for July is "Harriet The Spy" (Harper, 1964) by Louise Fitzhugh. Many of you have probably heard that Nickelodeon has produced a major motion picture based on the book which will be released on July 10. This will no doubt introduce the book to a new generation of readers and, because "Harriet" was such a ground-breaking book at the time it was published, we feel it deserves a closer look.
When it was first issued in 1964, "Harriet The Spy" received mixed reviews. It was perhaps best understood in its time by Zena Sutherland who wrote in her Bulletin for the Center of Children's Books review: "The story grows, moving from acid humor to compassion as the first image of a fractious and rather nasty girl gives way to the image of a little girl whose fierce candor and rebellious pride make it hard for her to get the love and approval she so desperately needs. Some of Harriet's behavior is utterly reprehensible; some of her parents' treatment of her is unfortunate, but all of this is devastatingly real."
Harriet was like no other character ever presented in children's books and most other adult critics disliked her intensely. She was described as "precocious, intense, egocentric and mean" by one critic; "sick in her mind" by another; and the Christian Science Monitor called her "...rather a pathetic figure -- too pathetic, one hopes, for young people to admire."
In her now infamous anti-Harriet editorial in Horn Book Magazine, Ruth Hill Viguers condemned the book, calling it "disagreeable,"
"cynical" and "a very jaded view on which to open children's windows." She predicted it would be of no interest to children.
"Most children are not really interested in finding in books just what they have with them every day," she wrote. "They look for something more from grownups."
Today, of course, we have the advantage of hindsight. Many of us also have the advantage of having read "Harriet The Spy" as children. Over the years I have heard dozens of adults comment on the impact Harriet had on them when they were young. Many immediately recognized themselves in her. Some even took up spying.
We would like to open this discussion by hearing from people who remember reading HTS as children. What did you make of it? Did it stand out as "different" from other books you were reading at the time? If so, how? How did it influence you?
KT Horning, CCBC University of Wisconsin-Madison
Received on Mon 01 Jul 1996 12:59:00 PM CDT
Date: Mon, 01 Jul 1996 11:59:00 -0600
Thanks to all who have contributed to our discussion of Frances Temple's books. Please feel free to continue adding comments as we move into July.
As we announced in a previous message, our discussion topic for July is "Harriet The Spy" (Harper, 1964) by Louise Fitzhugh. Many of you have probably heard that Nickelodeon has produced a major motion picture based on the book which will be released on July 10. This will no doubt introduce the book to a new generation of readers and, because "Harriet" was such a ground-breaking book at the time it was published, we feel it deserves a closer look.
When it was first issued in 1964, "Harriet The Spy" received mixed reviews. It was perhaps best understood in its time by Zena Sutherland who wrote in her Bulletin for the Center of Children's Books review: "The story grows, moving from acid humor to compassion as the first image of a fractious and rather nasty girl gives way to the image of a little girl whose fierce candor and rebellious pride make it hard for her to get the love and approval she so desperately needs. Some of Harriet's behavior is utterly reprehensible; some of her parents' treatment of her is unfortunate, but all of this is devastatingly real."
Harriet was like no other character ever presented in children's books and most other adult critics disliked her intensely. She was described as "precocious, intense, egocentric and mean" by one critic; "sick in her mind" by another; and the Christian Science Monitor called her "...rather a pathetic figure -- too pathetic, one hopes, for young people to admire."
In her now infamous anti-Harriet editorial in Horn Book Magazine, Ruth Hill Viguers condemned the book, calling it "disagreeable,"
"cynical" and "a very jaded view on which to open children's windows." She predicted it would be of no interest to children.
"Most children are not really interested in finding in books just what they have with them every day," she wrote. "They look for something more from grownups."
Today, of course, we have the advantage of hindsight. Many of us also have the advantage of having read "Harriet The Spy" as children. Over the years I have heard dozens of adults comment on the impact Harriet had on them when they were young. Many immediately recognized themselves in her. Some even took up spying.
We would like to open this discussion by hearing from people who remember reading HTS as children. What did you make of it? Did it stand out as "different" from other books you were reading at the time? If so, how? How did it influence you?
KT Horning, CCBC University of Wisconsin-Madison
Received on Mon 01 Jul 1996 12:59:00 PM CDT
