# Harriet the Spy

**Author:** Louise Fitzhugh
**Grade range:** Grades 4–7
**Age range:** 9–12
**First published:** 1964
**Page count:** 308
**Genre:** Middle Grade Fiction
**ISBN-13:** `9780064471657`
**ISBN-10:** `0064471659`
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/book/harriet-the-spy
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## About this book

Louise Fitzhugh's 1964 classic introduces eleven-year-old Harriet M. Welsch, an aspiring writer who patrols her Manhattan neighborhood jotting brutally honest observations about everyone she knows in a secret notebook. When her classmates find the notebook and read what she really thinks of them, Harriet must face the fallout and learn the difference between honesty and cruelty.

## Themes

- friendship
- identity
- growing up
- school

## Where this book is assigned

### Oklahoma Sequoyah Children's Book Award

- **recommended** · 4th grade · Oklahoma — [source: Oklahoma Library Association — Sequoyah Book Award, Children's (gr 3-5) + Intermediate (gr 6-8) divisions (student-choice; since 1959); winner roll 1959-2025](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoyah_Book_Award)
- **recommended** · 5th grade · Oklahoma — [source: Oklahoma Library Association — Sequoyah Book Award, Children's (gr 3-5) + Intermediate (gr 6-8) divisions (student-choice; since 1959); winner roll 1959-2025](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoyah_Book_Award)
- **recommended** · 6th grade · Oklahoma — [source: Oklahoma Library Association — Sequoyah Book Award, Children's (gr 3-5) + Intermediate (gr 6-8) divisions (student-choice; since 1959); winner roll 1959-2025](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoyah_Book_Award)
- **recommended** · 7th grade · Oklahoma — [source: Oklahoma Library Association — Sequoyah Book Award, Children's (gr 3-5) + Intermediate (gr 6-8) divisions (student-choice; since 1959); winner roll 1959-2025](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoyah_Book_Award)

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_Generated from primary-source citations indexed on ReadingList.school. For the full HTML view with reading-list cross-references, see https://readinglist.school/book/harriet-the-spy._