Yesterday Beverly Cleary died at the age of 104. Her books were beloved to me as a child! I remember my first grade teacher letting me read out loud to my little reading group. I was reading out of the book, “Ramona and Her Mother”. Although it was a little challenging for me at that age and reading level, I wanted so much to get to know the characters and the plot that I struggled though it! I read a similar sentiment in her obituary on NPR when she said, “I think children want to read about normal, everyday kids. That’s what I wanted to read about when I was growing up. I wanted to read about the sort of boys and girls that I knew in my neighborhood and in my school. And in my childhood, many years ago, children’s books seemed to be about English children, or pioneer children. And that wasn’t what I wanted to read. And I think children like to find themselves in books.”
And then this other quote from the same article, “Decades after they were written, Cleary’s books still ring true for children. “I think deep down inside children are all the same,” she said. “They want two loving parents and they would prefer a house with a neighborhood they can play in. They want teachers that they can like. I don’t think children have changed that much. It’s the world that has changed.”
The world is a better place because of writers like Beverly Cleary. My daughter, Anna (11) just walked in and in after I told her that the author of the Ramona books just passed away she exclaimed how amazing she was and that she has read all of her books, “Like five times”. Enough said.
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