[jawns]

I read "Harriet the Spy" as a child, then re-read it 2 years ago to my own kids, and I couldn't shake the thought, as I read it, that this was a portrait of a girl with autism before autism was really understood, or at least widely known as a diagnosis.

Here is a blog post by an autistic woman that goes into detail about why Harriet is pretty clearly on the autism spectrum:

https://cllynch.com/harriet-the-spy-is-autistic/

To be honest, this realization made it harder for me to enjoy the book as an adult, because it's hard to watch her life spiral out of control, knowing that if the people around her better understood autism, some of that pain might have been avoided.