Harriet spies again

Review by Booklist Review

Gr. 4-6. In 1964, Louise Fitzhugh's Harriet the Spytook the children's book world by storm with its brutally honest heroine and her less-than-perfect parents. Now, nearly 40 years later, Ericson, with permission from the Fitzhugh estate, offers fans another chance to savor one of their favorite characters. This story begins at the close of The Long Secret(1965) as Harriet is preparing to start seventh grade at the Gregory School. She learns that her parents are leaving to spend three months in Paris and that Ole Golly (minus Mr. Waldenstein, who is to be "expunged" from our memories) will return from Montreal to look after her. Harriet is ecstatic to learn that her dear friend is returning, but things have changed in the months Ole Golly has been away. Her caretaker now seems sad and tired, refuses to talk about her recent past, makes mysterious trips to a doctor across the street, and is overheard speaking on the phone about her "innocence." Naturally, Harriet's curiosity and her spying talents help her uncover Ole Golly's secrets. Ericson has done a commendable job of weaving background details and new back-story material into her book. The story can stand alone, but it fits in well with the originals, which still seem fresh and accessible to today's audiences, and Ericson's depictions of Harriet, her parents, and Ole Golly are right on the mark; the characters look and sound like Fitzhugh's own creations. One small quibble--while this story overlaps time periods with Sport (1979), who features prominently in Ericson's story, Ericson never refers to Sport's kidnapping, a pivotal part of the earlier book. There are bound to be purists who object to anyone else taking over Fitzhugh's characters, but this story is a worthy successor that kids will definitely enjoy. Kay Weisman.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

With the approval of Louise Fitzhugh's (author of Harriet the Spy) estate, Ericson revisits the life of Harriet M. Welsch and the executors' trust was well placed. An author's note reports that Ericson became a fan when this self-styled young spy first appeared in 1964, and her affection for the feisty character comes through in this new misadventure. Even the young detective's fascination with words and her inclination to write her notebook entries in CAPITAL LETTERS endures. When Harriet's parents leave Manhattan to spend three months in Paris, her former nanny, "Ole Golly," returns from Montreal (where she had moved with her new husband) to stay with the soon-to-turn 12-year-old. Though Harriet's mother warns her that Ole Golly has asked that no one mention her husband's name, the curious sleuth sets out to discover what transpired in Montreal. Harriet, while eavesdropping, believes she hears Ole Golly announce that she's innocent, which leads the girl to conclude that the nanny accidentally killed her husband. Meanwhile, another mystery percolates in the townhouse across the street, where husband-and-wife doctors appear to be keeping a girl captive. As Harriet doggedly attempts to crack these cases, her processing of misinformation makes for some comical scenarios. Although the novel does not plunge directly into the mystery (as Fitzhugh's works did) and a few sluggish subplots including Harriet's creation of a timeline of her life bog down the pace, overall Ericson has shaped a spirited tale and gives her follow-up to Fitzhugh's novels a fittingly timeless feel. Ages 10-up. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by School Library Journal Review

Gr 4-7-Ericson has written a worthy companion to Louise Fitzhugh's Harriet the Spy (Harper & Row, 1964; o.p.; Delacorte, 2000). The irrepressible heroine and many of her cronies return in a story that's rich in mystery, wry humor, wonderful wordplay, and an ending that suggests more to come. The action begins the summer before seventh grade when Harriet's parents announce that they're going to Paris for a few months and that her former nurse, Ole Golly, will return from Montreal to take care of her. But Ole Golly's presence gives Harriet less comfort than she expected because the woman is remote and sad, owing somehow, Harriet is sure, to her disastrous marriage to Mr. Waldenstein, which the girl is forbidden to mention. Also, Ole Golly's activities are cause for considerable speculation. Why does she make regular visits to the doctors across the street, carrying a small bag with her each time? When she finally figures out the truth-that Ole Golly is pregnant-Harriet tracks down Mr. Waldenstein and sets up a dramatic reunion that makes for a happy ending. A parallel plot introduces a quirky new character, Rosarita Sauvage aka Yolanda Montezuma aka Zoe Carpaccio aka Annie Smith. Ericson has perfectly captured the voice and pacing of Fitzhugh's original novel in a seamless rendering of a fresh, enjoyable story for today's readers. A few anachronisms and some minor missteps in chronology-here Sport's father has remarried during the summer while in Sport (Delacorte, 1979; o.p.; 2001) his marriage takes place after school begins-don't detract from this truly welcome publishing event.-Marie Orlando, Suffolk Cooperative Library System, Bellport, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Horn Book Review

(Intermediate) In the early 1960s, Louise Fitzhugh's Harriet M. Welsch was a harbinger of things to come. A fiercely honest and independent child, disliked by many grownups, she was a forerunner of the protagonists who peopled the realistic juvenile fiction of the latter half of the twentieth century. The great irony of Fitzhugh's career was that, although she followed Harriet the Spy with one creditable sequel, The Long Secret, she couldn't sustain what she herself had created and was unable to bring Harriet's world back to life in her last novel, Sport. So it's really no surprise that Ericson's attempt at resuscitation fails as well. The premise here is that Harriet's parents have gone to live in Paris for three months and have left her in the charge of her former nurse, Ole Golly, who has mysteriously left Montreal and Mr. Waldenstein to return to New York City. Harriet is determined to find out exactly what happened to Ole Golly's marriage but, quite uncharacteristically, won't ask her any direct questions. Instead she turns to her old habit of spying. Ole Golly has begun seeing a doctor who lives, conveniently, across the street from Harriet's brownstone; consequently, Harriet never has to venture off her own block to do her spy work, and much of it, in fact, she is able to do from inside her own home. (She has completely abandoned her regular spy route, for reasons that are never made clear-it's almost as if this Harriet has developed agoraphobia.) Each of the established characters has become his or her most superficial self: Sport is largely defined by his culinary skills, Ole Golly by her endless literary quotes (although she's not nearly as well read as Fitzhugh's original), Harriet's parents by their cool distance. Her best friends, Janie and Beth Ellen, have completely disappeared, as have all of Harriet's other wonderfully particularized classmates and neighbors. Most alarming, however, is that Harriet herself has become one-dimensional. She's obsessed with big words rather than human behavior, and, as a result, her notebook entries are bland and repetitive rather than pithy and scathingly honest. There's no understanding of Harriet as a future writer who spies and takes notes to try to figure out the world about which she wants to write; in fact, Ericson's Harriet claims several times that she wants to become a spy when she grows up. Anyone who has ever craved a tomato sandwich knows that Harriet already is a spy, one who takes her work quite seriously. Just let her get back out there with her notebook in the alleys and dumbwaiters of New York City to get some real work done. From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Having hardly aged a day since her last appearance over 20 years ago (Sport, 1979), Harriet M. Welsch again steps into view, notebook in hand, imagination entirely otherwise. With the permission of Louise Fitzhugh's estate, Ericson brings back all of the gang, even Ole Golly, expertly picks up threads from the first three novels, and adds a tantalizingly rude new age-mate across the street. As Harriet's still-clueless parents leave for an extended stay in Paris at summer's end, Ole Golly takes up her old position as governess-but in the throes of marital discord about which she is resolutely tightlipped. What with that mystery, plus the sudden appearance of a secretive, ill-tempered new neighbor, Harriet has plenty of snooping to do-in between helping her gentle friend Sport through a rocky start in public school, and ruminating about love, families, God, psychotherapy, and other preteen concerns. In the end, a memorable Thanksgiving brings revelations, new friendships, and, thanks to a convenient financial windfall (one of several contrivances), a blissful reunion between Ole Golly and her husband. Ericson catches the voices, deadpan humor, and overall tone of the earlier volumes, if not their venturesome treatment of controversial themes, in this safe, comfortable continuation, and her frequent references to past events may tempt readers young (or otherwise) to visit, or revisit, the originals. (Fiction. 10-12)

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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"I won't go," Harriet told her parents. She glared at them. Her parents had called her down from her room while she was busy on a project. Ordinarily the cook served Harriet her dinner at six in the kitchen while her parents had martinis in the living room. Harriet looked at her watch. It was exactly six. So not only had they interrupted her project, but now they were making her late for her dinner, which was very likely getting cold. She had been making a time line of her life. By taping sheets of paper carefully together, she had created a strip so long it reached from the door of her bedroom to the bottom of the old toy box that held all her notebooks. It had taken her twelve pieces of paper. Since Harriet would be twelve on her next birthday, she had designated one sheet for each year of her life. Then she had begun to fill in the important events. But she had barely finished half of the first page when her mother interrupted her. SIX MONTHS. SPEAKS FIRST WORD, Harriet had just written halfway across the first-year page. She thought for a moment about what her first word might have been. She pictured herself at six months old, with her nursemaid poised over the bassinet looking down at her, probably holding a warm milk-filled bottle. What might she have said? FIRST WORD she wrote as a subcategory. She thought about it for a while, trying to decide what a first word might be, at least a first word from the lips of a highly intelligent New York infant named Harriet M. Welsch. Carefully she printed PROCEED. Then she went on to SEVEN MONTHS. SPEAKS FIRST SENTENCE. FIRST SENTENCE: PROCEED WITH THE FEEDING, PLEASE. "Harriet, dear?" her mother had called up the stairs to Harriet's cozy bedroom at the top of the tall, narrow house. "Would you come down, please?" Reluctantly Harriet had rolled up her time line and headed down the two long flights of stairs to the double living room on the first floor. "I hope we didn't interrupt anything important, dear," Mrs. Welsch said after Harriet entered the living room and sat down on a dark red velvet chair. Harriet shrugged. They would not understand the time line. It would make them feel nervous and uncertain, she thought. Her parents frequently felt nervous and uncertain about her projects. So she said only, "I was just thinking about my infancy. Do you happen to remember my first word?" "Of course I do! Parents never forget such things," Mrs. Welsch said. She turned to her husband. "Harry, tell Harriet what her first word was!" Harriet's father stared blankly at her. Mrs. Welsch gave a thin laugh. "It was cookie , dear. You were about fourteen months old, and one day you quite clearly said cookie ." "And my first sentence?" Harriet asked, glumly realizing that she would have to start her time line over with the correct information. Cross-outs were unacceptable and Harriet only used pens. Just last Christmas her parents had given her a wonderful green Waterman pen, which she treasured and used as often as possible. "What was my first sentence?" "Well, you combined a verb and a noun, dear. You said, 'Gimme cookie.' " "Oh," Harriet said. Well, she thought, I won't bother to erase after all. It's essentially the same thing as "Proceed with the feeding." "Why did you want me to come down?" she asked her parents. "We have some news to share with you. Would you like a peanut, by the way?" Mrs. Welsch put her martini down and passed a small silver dish of peanuts to Harriet. Harriet shook her head. Ordinarily she liked peanuts, but for some reason she could feel her appetite disappearing. It made her uncomfortable when her parents announced news. Their news never seemed to be the kind of news Harriet wanted to hear. "What news?" she asked. "Your father has received a rather important assignment from the network. Harry, wouldn't you like to describe it to Harriet?" Mr. Welsch had been looking at the folded newspaper on the table near the peanut dish. He was pretending not to. But Harriet could see him surreptitiously glancing at the day's headlines. "Paris," he said. "Paris?" asked Harriet with suspicion. "France?" "We're to leave next week for Paris!" Mrs. Welsch explained in the same perky, delighted voice that she used to describe bridge tournaments or antiques auctions. "For how long?" Harriet wasn't deceived by the voice. A little vacation in Paris would be okay, she thought. Maybe it would be a pleasant interlude before school resumed next month. But she had an ominous feeling. She was glad she hadn't accepted a peanut. It might have lulled her too quickly into a cheerful reaction, when really suspicion was called for. Her mother wiped her lips tidily, using a small cocktail napkin printed with a red-and-green design of olives in a stack. She said something that sounded like twamah while holding the napkin in front of her mouth. "Twamah?" Harriet repeated, wondering if perhaps her mother was speaking French, although Harriet had studied French for two years already, in fifth and sixth grades, and twamah had not been a vocabulary word. " Trois mois ," Mr. Welsch said quite clearly and with an air of impatience. "We're going to live in Paris for three months, beginning next week." "The network has rented a lovely apartment for us, dear," Mrs. Welsch said. "Quite near the Luxembourg Gardens. Les jardins , I mean." In her mind Harriet leapt ahead on her time line to the final sheet, the one for her twelfth year, the one that she wedged under a corner of her old toy box when the long strip was unrolled on the floor of her room. AGE ALMOST-TWELVE: MOVES TO PARIS. It was not what she had had in mind for age almost-twelve. "I won't go," she told her parents, glaring. Then she added, "And in case you missed it, I expostulated that." Her father looked at her through his glasses. Harriet's father was a television executive. He had an executive face, and hair that was combed in an executive way. "Excuse me?" Mr. Welsch said. Harriet imagined how he must look in his office when some poor scriptwriter, nervous and hungry, sat before him with a manuscript held together by a frayed rubber band and pleaded for a chance to be head writer on a sitcom so he could pay his debts and feed his starving children. Her father would probably look down through his glasses the same way. He would probably say in that same executive voice, "Excuse me?" Harriet sighed. She repeated it. "I won't go," she said for the second time. "No, no, I understood that part," her father said. He sipped his martini. "I didn't understand what you added, about expostulating." "Oh. Well," Harriet explained, "Mr. Grenville says-" Harriet's mother interrupted. "Mr. Grenville is one of Harriet's teachers at school, dear," she told Harriet's father. He nodded. Harriet could tell he was making a note of that in his head. "Go on," he said. "Mr. Grenville says we must use strong verbs when we write." "Strong verbs?" Mr. Welsch took another sip of his drink. "Yes. For example, instead of just saying 'He walked,' we should say 'He ambled.' Or 'He strolled.' "I see." "And instead of 'She said,' it would be better to use a strong verb." "Like expostulate , perhaps?" Harriet's father asked. "Exactly. Expostulate is my current favorite. I have a list of favorite strong verbs in my notebook." "And so when you told us that you wouldn't go, you wanted to be certain that we understood you weren't simply saying it. You were-" "Expostulating," Harriet said. "I see." "She's very clever, dear, isn't she?" Mrs. Welsch said to her husband. She looked proudly at Harriet, who was sitting stiffly on the dark red velvet chair still glaring at both of her parents. Then she held the small dish of peanuts toward Harriet again, but Harriet once more declined. She was hoping that her failure to take a peanut-combined with the expostulating-would indicate to them how outraged she was. "It is outrageous," she said. "The whole idea is outrageous." Harriet liked the sound of that. Probably, she decided, she would add outrageous to the list of strong adjectives she was also keeping in her notebook. "And I absolutely will not go." "Harriet," said her father, and now he finished the last drops of his martini, set the glass down, and reached for the newspaper, "we were not planning to take you." From the Hardcover edition. Excerpted from Harriet Spies Again by Helen Ericson All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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