Grown-Up Reactions to Kid Lit: Harriet the Spy

My friend MK is a high-school librarian, so both of us read a pretty remarkable amount of kid lit. In this maybe-semi-regular-feature, we discuss it!

Jilly:  Okay, so how awesome is Harriet the Spy?

MK:  Honestly I was having a hard time getting into it. That's why I was pretty much reading two pages at a time at first.

Jilly:  Oh no! thanks for hating ALL THE GOOD THINGS.

MK:  I never said I HATED it. There are things I like about it a lot. But I'm realizing that I get easily frustrated by narrators/protagonists who don't understand things that are obvious to the reader. Which obviously is a problem when you're an adult reading a kids' book, but I think a modern young reader would also be all "Duh, Harriet" at various points.

Jilly:  That's fair. Like not knowing that the kids are building an anti-Harriet club?

MK:  That's probably the best example. Her reaction to Ole Golly having a relationship and the shrink also fall in that category. Honestly if this were a book written today, I would not at all be surprised if it were marketed as a(nother) book about an autistic kid.

Jilly:  Or as a young middle grade book. She feels like a very young 11 now; 8-9 seems to make more sense for her worldview.

MK:  Absolutely. On some level the other kids are the wrong age too, though- it's not like she's the only one who's immature.

Jilly:  No, they're all young for their age, for sure. I'm reading A Wrinkle in Time right now, and mis-aging is even more apparent there. Meg is what, 14? But she feels about 11.

I think there must be a couple things happening in these books: A.) They were written 50 years ago, and kids were kids longer.

MK:  Oh sure.

Jilly:  B.) The idea that kid lit should shield kids from growing up, rather than reflect the actual experience of it, might have been more firmly entrenched?

MK:  Oh that's an interesting idea.

Jilly:  That attitude still definitely exists—maybe it was more dominant then? Like "kid lit is meant to keep kids kids."  The idea that an 11-year-old would be more tuned in than that would be threatening to the idea of childhood.

MK:  Hmmm. That makes me want to analyze the Newbery winners over time or something.

Jilly: I also think there's the persistent idea that kids will only read "up" not "down," so Harriet's 11, but she has to reflect 8-year-olds.

MK:  Right.

Jilly:  What did you make of all the hilariously open references to shitty marriages and drinking and awful parents?

MK:  "Mr. So-and-so was totally stoned.”

Jilly:  RIGHT??? I presumed she meant drunk?

MK:  Probably.

Jilly:  Even so. Just wasted-ass parents all over the place

MK: This seems relevant:

 From the always-awesome xkcd.com. Now Jilly will never see any phrase with –ass in it the same, ever again.

Jilly: I also love that the takeaway is "you should lie more."

MK:  That's one of the things I love about the book- so few books for young people manage to be morally ambiguous.

Jilly:  Agreed. You have to learn a lesson, and it has to make you a better person. Harriet’s makes her a better-equipped person, yes, but morally, arguably a worse one. I also really liked that the parents didn't get hung up on the wrongness and cruelty of kids taking her diary. It's such a throwback way to parent: "so what, you still shouldn't ______"

Also, she missed enough school in the book that she would now be obligatorily held back.

MK:  You'd be surprised!

Jilly:  I guess I would. Damn. I always thought 10 days of absences was a tipping point at most schools

MK:  It probably should be, but we have kids who miss an appalling amount of school.

Jilly:  that's depressing. In other depressing news, I saw a graphic yesterday that 1/3 of people never read another book after graduating high school, and that over 40% of college grads never read a book again post-graduation. Part of me shriveled up and died.

MK:  I saw that too. There was also a really alarmist "report" from Common Sense Media that basically equated to "young people don't read anymore and screens are taking over our brains."

Jilly:  untrue, although kids who self-report reading for pleasure is apparently way down

MK:  Right, but a lot of definitions of "reading" aren't encompassing the kind of reading that many kids (and people) are doing for pleasure.

Jilly:  that's true. I do think there's something lost if kids aren't reading novel-length stories; whether they're in graphic novels or comics isn't important, but sustained storytelling does seem important to me.

MK:  I think it's important for everyone to at least experience a variety of formats/lengths. People are going to gravitate toward the ones they like best, but they can't if they're never exposed to them.

Jilly:  Agreed. And kids need to be encouraged to read anything that interests them. Trying to force the "right" kinds of books down their throats is what makes people think they don't like reading

MK:  Yup! Which is why I think high school English curricula need to be waaaaaaay revamped, but that's maybe another topic.

Jilly:  Almost certainly another topic.