Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

I don’t know how many times I have read this book, and every time, it startles me. It’s just terrific. So much writing, especially for children, is lying and/or propaganda—you can sense the writer trying to sell you a story, feel the synthetic fibers worked into what they’ve made for you; not here. Is this the only kid’s book where the trusted adult ultimately advises a child to lie? This was published in 1964, a generation after THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, which was written in the 1940s and published in 1951, and Holden and Harriet have always struck me as sort of literary cosmic twins—Holden has too much empathy, and Harriet too little, but both reckon with moving from the clear space of absolute and certain child-self-assuredness to the murkier territory of compromised adulthood.