Nobody's Family is Going to Change (This American Life)

The evolution of perspective in children's literature (J.D. Purple Socks: A Louise Fitzhugh Fan Site (via the Wayback Machine)Ī tribute to Louise Fitzhugh's perfectly prickly heroine (Entertainment Weekly) Harriet the Spy Hangout Honored as a Literary Landmark (Publishers Weekly)Īdventures in Feministory: Louise Fitzhugh and Harriet the Spy (Bitch Magazine) Louise Fitzhugh is Dead at 46 (The New York Times) The Notebooks of Harriet the Spy (Longreads) How to Be a Good Bad American Girl (The New Yorker) Unapologetically Harriet, the Misfit Spy (NPR) Nobody's Family is Going to Change (Louise Fitzhugh) She never published Amelia - if she had, it would have been the first novel written for teenagers that featured LGBTQ characters their own age. Louise died suddenly of a brain aneurysm in 1974, at the age of 46. Amelia told the story of two teenagers, roaming New York in the 1950s, talking about the crushes they felt for other girls. In addition to her landmark Harriet series, Louise was also working on another manuscript, Amelia. These qualities are the prerequisites for, and not the enemies of, creativity, curiosity, and insight.' As Louise explained in the book, children are more grown-up than grown-ups think and as Anna Holmes remembered, 'Fitzhugh taught readers that difference, nonconformity, and even subversion should be celebrated in young girls.

And that wasn't too heavy for young readers, she thought. Nobody's Family Is Going to Change walked readers through a world of divorce, abuse and family conflict. In 1964, she published Harriet the Spy, a book now recognized for its groundbreaking 'childhood realism' - as Louise told her publisher, children could handle adult issues. Louise moved to New York in 1950 to attend college (Barnard) and to participate in the artist's community as a painter and illustrator. You know Harriet, and the marbled composition book, and the binoculars and maybe even the orange Nickelodeon VHS tape (anyone, anyone?) - but do you know Louise Fitzhugh? She's the author behind the fabulously free world Harriet inhabits: a world of witty bon mots and rooftop escapades and timeless inspiration for girl spies everywhere.

(image via Twayne United Authors Series )

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