By Marcie McCauley | On May 10, 2019 | Updated September 25, 2026 | Comments (0)
“What in the world has happened to Beth Ellen?” Harriet wonders, just a few pages from the end of Louise Fitzhugh’s classic 1964 novel, Harriet the Spy. Beth Ellen comes into her own as a character in the 1965 novel, The Long Secret.
Harriet is still eleven years old and she sometimes still calls her friend Beth Ellen ‘Mouse.’
The Toronto Public Library has eighty-two copies of Harriet the Spy (1964) but only six copies of what was billed as the “Further Adventures of Harriet the Spy” — The Long Secret by Louise Fitzhugh, which was published the following year, and only two copies of Sport (1979). Read More→
By Marcie McCauley | On May 9, 2019 | Updated February 7, 2026 | Comments (5)
Marcie McCauley reflects on revisiting Harriet the Spy, the 1964 classic by Louise Fitzhugh, and how the story continues to resonate and inspire her as a working writer.
See, first you take off your coat and hang it on the back of a library chair, use it to mark a comfortable seat as your place to return to with a stack of books. Then you fetch the ones you remember most fondly. You can’t have too many at one time or the librarians are annoyed. I usually have ten.* Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On March 22, 2019 | Updated September 17, 2026 | Comments (6)
Though Emily Brontë (1818 – 1848) only lived to the age of thirty, she produced Wuthering Heights, one of the most iconic novels in the English literary canon. For an avowed introvert such as Emily was, her dog, Keeper, became one of the few and most faithful companions of her adult life.
The sister of Charlotte and Anne Brontë, Emily didn’t care for company outside of her immediate family, and any time she ventured from her beloved Yorkshire moors, she became sick with longing to return. Read More→
By Larrisa Pope | On March 8, 2019 | Updated June 25, 2026 | Comments (17)
Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 – January 28, 1960), was a novelist, ethnographer, memoirist, and folklorist whose literary career got off the ground at the height of the Harlem Renaissance era. Presented here are fascinating facts about Zora Neale Hurston that shed light on her complicated life and legacy.
Zora was a natural storyteller. As she grew up, in Eatonville, Florida, she listened to the stories of people she encountered. Her love of story would lead her not only to create her own, but to collect stories from the oral traditions of the African American South and the Black cultures of the Caribbean.
With her determined intelligence and boisterous personality, Zora quickly became a big name in the Harlem Renaissance, or as it was then often called, the New Negro movement of the 1920s. Read More→
By Skyler Gomez | On March 3, 2019 | Updated September 15, 2026 | Comments (6)
Gabriela Mistral, born Lucila Godoy Alcayaga (April 7, 1889 – January 10, 1957), was a Chilean poet, educator, diplomat, and feminist. She grew up living in poverty with her family in a small Andean village of Montegrande and developed her father’s gift for teaching despite having dropped out of school at age fifteen.
After multiple notable works including Sonetos de la muerte (1914) and Lagar (1954), Mistral received national recognition and praise as her was translated into various languages from her native Spanish.
Though she’s best known for being the first Latin American woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, she did so much more during her remarkable life. Here are some fascinating facts about Gabriela Mistral that may inspire you to learn more about her, and better yet, to read her work.
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