Long Lost Reviews is a monthly meme created by Ally over at Ally’s Appraisals which is posted on the second Thursday of every month. The aim is to start tackling your review backlog. Whether it’s an in-depth analysis of how it affected your life, one sentence stating that you only remember the ending, or that you have no recollection of reading the book at all.
Published: 1st July 1996
Publisher: HarperTrophy
Pages: 298
Format: Paperback
Genre: Junior Fiction
★ ★ ★ ★ – 4 Stars
Harriet M. Welsch is determined to grow up and be a famous author. In the meantime, she practices by following a regular spy route each day and writing down everything she sees in her secret notebook.
Then one morning, Harriet’s life is turned upside down. Her classmates find her spy notebook and read it out loud! Harriet’s in big trouble. The other sixth-graders are stealing her tomato sandwiches, forming a spy-catcher club, and writing notes of their own — all about Harriet!
I reread this book so many times as a kid. I had the movie tie-in cover which is now much loved as evidence by the very crinkled cover. I don’t remember a lot of the little details, but I have always had an affection for this book. This was probably reinforced by the movie, but to be honest, it was a great movie.
Harriet wants to be a writer, therefore she must practice. She writes down everything in her notebook, everything she sees and everything people say and do around her. I’d never thought about whether it was Harriet who subconsciously got me interested in becoming an author, I award that honour to John Marsden, but maybe she put a small seed in my head as well which started the idea growing.
Since I was a kid when I saw the movie and read the book, the movie has imprinted itself on me much more. The movie got me interested in The Walrus and the Carpenter poem, despite the fact I probably would have seen Alice in Wonderland first. I remember loving this book, and I definitely think I have blurred the movie and the book together in my imagination, but it was a great book to show what happens when you write about other people and put your opinions on paper in full detail.
I remember the book being a lot more serious than the blurb makes it sound like. As a kid I guess these things are more dire and I just remember the feeling I experienced when the others find Harriet’s notebook. The second hand mortification I felt stays with me now. It was the most intense and climactic thing I had read since being stressed about Bastian in The Never Ending Story.
Doing these Long Lost Reviews has made me reminisce about some wonderful books I know I’ve loved but have long forgotten. They also spark a strong desire to reread them, even when I can barely read the books I haven’t read yet. I may have to find some room though to revisit this little gem.
Lost in a Good Book 