My favorite book of all time, the one that shaped who I am *before* I read the Bible and had my world turned around, is “Harriet the Spy", by Louise Fitzhugh.
You open that book up, on the first page, this girl is PLANNING A CITY. You can’t get more “grab the reader & run with them" than that.
I was introduced to this book at a very early age, in the summer school session, after first grade when we had JUST learned to read. Ms. McClain, a feminist if there ever was one, read it to us.
Something about Harriet affected me deeply, and I wanted to do everything she did. She didn’t care about dressing like everyone else, she wasn’t messing around with learning ballroom dancing, she considered her after school activities to be very serious work, and most importantly, she was very serious about writing. And I think if that 11 year old had grown up during the sixties and was still alive today, she’d most likely still be writing.
After I’d had this read to me, I found my own copy and read it voraciously. I took up the habit of keeping a notebook, just like Harriet, and tried to be very serious about my own inner life and habits.
Now that I’m a “grownup", I don’t have that same kind of steady drive to forward an agenda, I have moments that come in little spurts, like this.
