I want you as my chum. As so many of us who have faced friendship one time or another, Emily wasn't eager to trust a relative stranger. Their friendships have long been among my favorite examples of friendship in literature. When yearning for a best friend as a child, I wasn't necessarily looking for someone who liked all the same things as me but did want friends with whom I felt comfortable sharing my interests. In Harriet the Spy , by Louise Fitzhugh, Harriet's two friends throughout the book are Sport and Janie.
Sport likes to play football and plans to grow up to be an accountant.
Janie likes to do chemistry experiments and plans to grow up to blow up the world. Harriet likes to spy on the neighborhood and plans to grow up to be a writer. Despite different interests, the three maintain a comfortable friendship. They hang out both in and outside of school, as well as share personal concerns. Then one day, a classmate discovers Harriet's notebook and reads aloud her observations about her classmates.