Thanks to Harriet

If you have 7 minutes, NPR's In Character series has a neat piece contrasting Nancy Drew and Harriet the Spy. It doesn't explore the lesbian themes with the same depth as Horn Book did last year, and maybe it makes Harriet sound like the first bratty protagonist to ever appear in a children's book (what about Mary Lennox?), but I liked.

It also made me think: with all the bratty, precocious, big-mouthed, rough and tumble kids populating children's books these days, would you have to write about a sweet Pollyanna or a Little Princess to make a wave? Certainly The Penderwicks got a decent amount of attention for doing just that.