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PowellsBooks.Blog
Authors, readers, critics, media − and booksellers.

Original Essays

Seeing Cleary

by Powell's Staff, April 2, 2021 10:22 AM
Powell's Map of Henry Huggins's neighborhood

We love many old-fashioned children’s books, but what makes Beverly Cleary’s books extra special is that 80 years after the publication of the first Henry Huggins novel, they don’t feel anachronistic. Sure, Ramona and her peers have a little more freedom to wander than today’s children do, but the basic aspects of their lives — elementary school teachers, friendships, sibling rivalries, chaos, loving parents — haven’t changed. As a child, it’s easy to find yourself in dependable Beezus, lively Ramona, enterprising Henry, and their friends; as parents, our hearts leap in recognition every time a weary Mrs. Quimby comes home to start dinner, only to find a Ramona-inspired disaster. Baked doll, bluing-tinted skin, toothpaste mountains, crown of burs — no one beats Cleary’s capacity for imagining trouble.

Cleary understood the business of childhood and, unusually for a children’s book author, the everyday humor and anxiety of parenting. We are lucky to have had her with us for so long, and luckier still to have her stories to guide and entertain us for generations to come.

***
Like so many, I grew up reading Beverly Cleary. I remember sitting rapt at bedtime with my brother as Ralph S. Mouse first learned the sounds which would bring a toy motorcycle to life. I moved to Portland when I was seven years old and the Klickitat Street kids helped me through the move. We visited the statues in Grant Park when we arrived. My first Portland friends. As a bookseller, like speaking a secret, I tell wide-eyed readers that I went to the same school as Ramona Quimby. We celebrate Cleary’s birthday every year. Customers, remembering discovering her books as children themselves, would marvel that she was still alive. Perhaps this is because we all grew up reading her stories. She felt immortal because her books feel immortal. Timeless. Set as she herself said, “in childhood.” — Sarah R.

My parents both grew up reading Beverly Cleary, so they read her books aloud to my sisters and I as we grew up. We all adored her sense of humor and how well she understood the world through the eyes of a child. As a sensible old Beezus myself — complete with younger sisters Ramona and Roberta — these books continue to hold such a special place in my heart. I know that any children I or my sisters have will be the third read-aloud generation. — Madeline S.

Reading The Mouse and the Motorcycle on the floor of the Eugene Public Library is one of my earliest reading memories. — Tove H.

Beverly Cleary was and is always a part of my life. Growing up in Portland, librarians and schoolteachers would read her books aloud, filling our minds with the world of Ramona, Beezus, and Henry as we sat on the carpet surrounded by beautifully organized children's books or in small wooden chairs with the distinct smell of chalk and pencil shavings. Her books were faced-out or on book stands everywhere I went, from public and school libraries to local toy shops and bookstores and I'd take walks with my family in NE Portland, near the K-8 Beverly Clearly school, close to her house near Klickitat street. Beverly Cleary lived a long life and leaves an iconic legacy which we're forever grateful for. — Kim T.

I read Beverly Cleary’s books well before my family moved to Portland when I was in 7th grade, but they gave this rainy, bookish city a magical shine that hasn’t worn off. When my first daughter was born, I’d push her stroller down Klickitat St., and a few years later we read through all of the Ramona books together. Now my two daughters fight over who’s most like Ramona, and honestly, it’s a fight I can get behind because if they’re arguing about books instead of toys, dessert, or who’s breathing more on whom, we must be doing something right. — Rhianna W.

Do you have memories of reading Beverly Cleary’s books? Share in the comments below.



Books mentioned in this post

Ramona Quimby 08 Ramonas World

Beverly Cleary
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4 Responses to "Seeing Cleary"

Kathie April 26, 2021 at 02:02 PM
As a college professor and as a reading specialist, I have relied on Cleary's "Henry Huggins" to spark interest in reading and learning to read. College students in my undergraduate and graduate children's literature courses would erupt in laughter when I read aloud the first chapter, about Henry bringing his stray dog on the city bus. One of my elementary school students was discouraged about reading, until I read him the first chapter of "Henry Huggins". I had said,"You don't have to read the book, just listen." When I finished, he said, "I'll read that book." He proceeded to read every book that Beverly Cleary had written, and then moved on to many other writers of high quality. He told his fourth grade friends about Cleary's books, and later complained that he couldn't find her books in his school library, because they had all been checked out! Later, when this student had developed into a very accomplished reader, he said to me, "Kathie, what would have ever happened if you hadn't read me that first chapter?"

Linda Lloyd April 7, 2021 at 11:37 PM
I remember the excitement of having Beverly Cleary visit my grade school... Not only had I loved the books she wrote, but I also remember being thrilled to meet her in person. Her books and the person she was have made an impact on my life. (So much so that one of my favorite childhood "treasures" I've saved is her autograph from that day...)

Erin April 7, 2021 at 11:43 AM
As a child, I regarded Beverly Cleary as "my" author. I identified so strongly with Ramona that I felt as if Cleary had based her on me, though we never met. I wanted Ramona as a friend. Or I wanted to BE Ramona. She had so many of my traits, then and now. I understood and empathized when Ramona reached out to touch Susan's hair, only to pull it accidentally. Everyone assumed that Ramona had done it deliberately, perhaps out of malice, and she stood there, surrounded by accusing eyes, unable to articulate what her intentions really were. So of course, Cleary must have had insight into this particular little girl (me). She must have based her stories on me, somehow. I grew up in Eugene, and trips to Portland were always a huge delight. I never went to Klickitat Street, though. Now I can see the enormous influence Beverly Cleary has had, and continues to have, and I'm so glad that "my" author - my personal, private author - is so widely praised.

Amy April 7, 2021 at 08:39 AM
As an educator who spent the biggest part of her thirty-five year career teaching second graders, I shared Beverly Cleary's books with my classes every year, much to my delight and theirs! Her stories were always appropriate and never failed to "speak" to the lives of my students in a small village in northeastern Ohio. Upon learning of her passing, many former students contacted me to express their fond memories of gathering on the rug after lunch and recess for story time with Ramona, Beezus, Henry, Ribsy, and Ralph S. Mouse. Beverly Cleary's stories had an equal impact on all of us...

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