Beverly Cleary, who wrote a lot of beloved children’s books, including the Henry Huggins and Ramona Quimby stories, passed away today at the age of 104.
She was my very first “favorite author,” and I remember, as a grade schooler, reading every one of her books that our local library had.
RIP. I remember reading almost all of her books (written yet, anyway) as a kid.
even though I wasnt a big fan of her books shell be missed …
I read her books – checked out from the library – to my daughter around 1998-1999. We both loved them. Thank you Ms. Cleary.
Wow, she was just mentioned recently on this board, and I looked her up to see if she was still alive, and was impressed as to what age she had gotten to.
I don’t remember her books all that well, but I know I read most of them. Had a slight wave of nostalgia when I was perusing the titles of her works.
Ramona was my hero as a kid in the 80s. And Ralph the mouse. RIP, my fellow Oregonian.
She was one of my favorite authors in the 1950’s!
My mother was a huge fan. Ramona, Beezus and Henry figured big in my childhood, and I believe the Klickitat Street kids’ books by Cleary were the first ones I read aloud.
I’m glad she lived a good long life. I will always appreciate the role she had in giving me a lifelong love of reading.
RIP, Ms. Cleary. Yours was a life well lived.
She was one of those famous people who I was amazed to learn was (before today) still alive.
Same here. I guess actually the Hardy Boys books were the book series I became an avid reader of, but Franklin W. Dixon wasn’t a real person, but rather a pseudonym used by multiple ghost writers (but I’m sure I didn’t know that at the time). Then I read Ramona the Pest around 4th grade or so, and after that started reading every Beverly Cleary book the school library had.
I liked everything of hers that I read, but I was especially enthralled with that adventurous mouse Ralph.
Dang, I’d just about convinced myself she was immortal. As a Portland resident it has always given me a smile at how this town loves Ms Cleary–she has a very lovely dedicated room at the main library downtown and there’s a sculpture garden of her characters in a park near where she set so many of her books. I even chipped in on a Kickstarter campaign to publish a book of walking tours to visit her book settings. A treasure, and while it’s sad she’s gone I’m so glad she had such a long and productive life and was loved by millions of children, generation after generation. What a legacy to leave behind!
Another one for whom she was a childhood favorite.
I do remember really enjoying The Mouse and the Motorcycle and Runaway Ralph. I can’t remember anything that happened in them, but I did like them.
She also wrote some great teen romances like The Luckiest Girl:
The Luckiest Girl (An Avon Camelot Book): Cleary, Beverly: 9780380728060: Amazon.com: Books
I never read any of her books, which is weird since my mother was from Portland. In fact, I never heard of her until I moved here. It sounds like she was a lovely person.
I kept reading my Ellen Tebbits and Otis Spofford books well into my teens! So many great memories from those books: Ramona’s scheme to replace dad’s cigarettes with rolled-up pieces of paper with messages on them; “Why don’t you turn on the dawnzer?”, Henry having to collect $10 worth of worms at a penny a worm, something like that.
In the early 1960s Miss Cleary penned a couple of paperbacks based on the TV show “Leave It to Beaver.” I had them then and I think I still have them somewhere, if I were to look hard enough. The characters and tone of the TV show were created by others, but she really nailed it. I think it’s interesting that while she’s widely known for her own original characters and series, she wrote these other books as well. It’s just amazing how prolific she was.
As much as I enjoyed her kid’s books (especially Ramona the Pest), I liked her memoirs, which I read as an adult: A Girl from Yamhill and My Own Two Feet. Strongly recommend both.
Well, darn-- but 104 is a very good run. One of my favorite books of hers was Mitch and Amy, which was an unusual one-off, which is to say, not about a group of kids she wrote several books about; it was about a pair of boy-girl twins. Later, I read that Cleary herself was the mother of a set of such twins.
RIP-- I certainly got many hours of peace behind the pages of her books.
Mitch and Amy! I had that one, so good!