Because of the unending parade of snow days and school holidays coming up over the next few months, I have been trying to find interesting (to me) longer chapter books to read to Tesfa, but books that are still somewhat interesting to a five year old. The intersection is non-trivial, but I’ve exhausted our home stash, having read all our Franny K. Stein books, Roald Dahl ones, Og, and Jacob Two-Two a googol times each. And I keep seeing all these great reviews of Harriet the Spy, of which I know I bought a copy at Fair’s Fair in Calgary, but I can’t find anywhere. So I took another copy out of the library and since today is the (third) snow day (in five days), I sat down to read it to Tesfa.
Now I know that Tesfa is outside the age range for this book, so it may not be appropriate, and I know that I read this book when I was a kid because I remember thinking afterwards I should keep a notebook, which lasted for about eight seconds until I decided I did not want to carry a notebook around with me everywhere I went, and I know that 1964 was different than 2014, but damn I’d forgotten how mean and judgmental Harriet is. I stopped reading midway through Chapter Two with:
DOES HIS MOTHER HATE HIM? IF I HAD HIM, I’D HATE HIM. [caps lock from source]
Seriously?
I didn’t read that bit aloud and then told Tesfa that my throat hurt too much more to continue.
Kids are cruel. I understand that. But this? This is just too much for naive, rose-goggled meghan. I keep reading about how engaging Harriet is and how curious Harriet is and how non-traditional Harriet is. Well, what about how mean Harriet is and how unnecessarily cruel she is? The internet tells me she gets her comeuppance and then learns that writing down and saying cruel things have consequences, but I don’t know. Tesfa’s too little for that action-consequence logic right now. Back to Franny K. Stein for another week.