# Beverly Cleary **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 5, 2002, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beverly-cleary/117477 "2002-07-05T11:29:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![voguevixen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5ac83/32.png) [@voguevixen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voguevixen)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2002, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beverly-cleary/117477/41 "2002-07-07T18:42:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by zweisamkeit \* > \*\ ***JohnT, Miss Mapp** , that was Ellen Tebbits. The two also had the same dress the first day of school (made of material that had monkeys on palm trees and whatnot). > > \*\* Oh yeah! I think the big fracas was they’d bought the material special for the first day, thinking their mothers would make them identical dresses and they’d be twins. Of course each mother just used whatever pattern they already had and the dresses were completely different aside from the material. (One for example had a sash, which got ripped off in the argument or something.) ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2002, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beverly-cleary/117477/42 "2002-07-07T19:08:11Z")
Okay: Ellen’s mother always made her clothes for her, so Ellen’s mom was a seamstress. Augustine’s mother was NOT-she bought Augustine’s dresses. So, Ellen’s dress came out really pretty. Augustine’s was craptastic. So, Augustine, who was jealous, kept untying Ellen’s sash as a joke on the way to school. The final time, Ellen was really annoyed, turned around and slapped Augustine in the face. It wasn’t until the night of the play, Ellen overheard Augustine talking to Linda-it had been OTIS who untied Ellen’s sash, not Augustine. So, a couple weeks later, Ellen and Augustine are assigned to clap erasers. While there, Ellen grabs Augustine’s sash on her dress and rips it off. Then, they make up. And you know, the whole thing could have been avoided: if they wanted to dress like twins, why couldn’t they have BOUGHT two indentical dresses! D’uh! ---
**Author:** ![Kallessa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7993a0/32.png) [@Kallessa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kallessa)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2002, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beverly-cleary/117477/43 "2002-07-07T19:09:48Z")
I read and loved the Henry and Ribsy books as a child, before Ramona was a star. She was just the kid sister in the Henry books. I didn’t discover that books had been written about her until I was an adult, but then I fell in love. She’d always been a favorite and so having a whole series to herself was great. I’m another adult who frequently re-reads books from my childhood, or who looks around the yound adult section of the library looking for new authors. These books often cover very important and emotional themes, and don’t hide it behind several layers of plot devices or best seller ‘conventions’. Two other authors from my childhood who should be remembred; Mary Stolz (_The Bully of Barkham Street_ et.al) and Edward Eager (_Half Magic_et.al.) ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2002, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beverly-cleary/117477/44 "2002-07-07T21:22:03Z")
Thanks, everybody. You know, it’s been a long time since I read a children’s novel… perhaps I ought to pick one up the next time I’m at B&N. **Sophbella** : You use erasers to remove the chalk from blackboards. To remove the chalk, the teacher usually called upon a couple of kids to go outside to the side of the school and bang the faces of each eraser against each other. As you can imagine, this was a desired task among kids and the race to get to be elected to eraser cleaning duty was sometimes fierce. Not all kids wanted to participate… after all, it is a pretty messy business. But a lot of the boys (including me) wanted to. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beverly-cleary/117477/45 "2002-07-15T10:18:29Z")
Oh, I remember Ramona and the owls! “‘Class,’ said the teacher, ‘when we waste paste, and then pound our eyes down with our fists, our eyes skid.’ Ramona congratulated herself on her owl’s non-skid eyes.” Then, when the teacher asks Susan what her plagiarized owl is looking at, Susan mumbles, “Uh…another owl?” “How dumb,” thinks Ramona. “He’s looking at a bat, a mouse, a witch flying on a broomstick, Superman, anything but another owl!” And I also remember Beezus’ “40-year-old hair”. My heart just broke for her, sobbing, “I know that what I do is more important than how I look…but I just wanted to look nice!” **Not in grade seven it’s not!** Anyone remember another of the teenage books, **The Luckiest Girl** , about the Oregonian girl who spends a year in California? Reason I bring it up is, there’s a sequence in which the hosts’ 13-year-old daughter is the unhappy recipient of a “_hand-knit_ with _cable stitch_” sweater from Grandma. “I can’t wear this to school!” she wails. “Everyone will make FUN of me!” “Oh, they will not!” Mom scoffs. And I’m thinking, lady, what planet are you from? Luckily, Mrs. Quimby was more understanding about the awful hair than this woman was about the homemade sweater. And I’m sorry you guys don’t like Henry Huggins! I do! I liked the one where he and his pals were trick-or-treating, and they arrived at one house just as the wife was returning from the market. “Oh shoot…I forgot it was Halloween, and all I have is soap and carrots. I guess you’ll just have to play a trick.” “Oh, no, we like you; we won’t play a trick…Hey, that’s a neat stuffed owl!” “Oh, you want that?” “Sure! Unless…Mr. Whatsis still wants it?” “TAKE IT! Before he gets back!” And there was this one sequence that was **so** Fifties. A variety store was having a grand opening, so the Quimbys and Hugginses went as a group. Girls got gardenias (I think) and boys got balloons. Beezus kept sniffing her flower until it wilted, and Henry tied his balloon to his beanie. Then he found out he’d won a door prize, and everyone laughed to see him on the podium with the balloon on his beanie. Then they laughed more when they found out he’d won a book of coupons for the beauty salon. Then **he** laughed when he found out he could sell them to get enough money for the bike he’d been salivating over! Oh, and that one bit where his so-called friend Scooter kept exploiting him! “Will you fold my papers before I have to deliver them, so I can fool around all afternoon and still get my bonus…Yeah, great…Whaddya mean, you’ve been putting flyers for YOUR magazine drive in MY papers!” I wanted to smack him! Also, those of you who think Beezus is bossy and annoying, I guess you forgot that Ramona scribbled all over a library book that was taken out on Beezus’ card, wrecked her birthday cake by putting her babydoll in the oven while it was baking (she was playing Gretel), and was generally just loud and hyper! ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beverly-cleary/117477/46 "2002-07-15T12:25:52Z")
“Dear Sherif Bud…” ---
**Author:** ![Glory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7cd45c/32.png) [@Glory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Glory)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beverly-cleary/117477/47 "2002-07-15T15:27:11Z")
> [@](#): > > It wasn’t until the night of the play, Ellen overheard Augustine talking to Linda-it had been OTIS who untied Ellen’s sash, not Augustine. So, a couple weeks later, Ellen and Augustine are assigned to clap erasers. While there, Ellen grabs Augustine’s sash on her dress and rips it off. Then, they make up. > > And you know, the whole thing could have been avoided: if they wanted to dress like twins, why couldn’t they have BOUGHT two indentical dresses! D’uh! Not exactly. IIRC they made up after the big rat/May Pole dress where Ellen helped Augustine when her mask slipped over her eye and she couldn’t see. As far as their moms buying matching dresses, a constant theme of the Beverly Cleary books were families with lots of love, but not much money. ---
**Author:** ![SkeptiJess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@SkeptiJess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkeptiJess)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beverly-cleary/117477/48 "2002-07-15T21:01:05Z")
> [@](#): > > I liked Ramona because she was “every kid”. She wasn’t a girly girl, or a tomboy girl-she was just a regular, everyday kid, with every day kid dilemmas. This is Mrs. Cleary’s magic – she can write “real” children. Many of her books are quite dated (the first was written in 1950 or 1952), but her _characters_ never seem dated – they seem real. I have read all of her books numerous times. My own favorite _series_ is Henry Huggins. I just love Henry. My favorite single book is probably Otis Spofford – who was really before his time. When we think about '50s books and TV shows, we think about happy nuclear families with cookie-baking moms and so forth. Otis was a borderline-neglected latchkey kid with a nasty case of what would nowadays be quickly diagnosed as ADHD… Such a funny book, but also really sad. I didn’t “get” the sad part as a kid reading the book but I do as an adult. Otis was just crying out for attention. I always finish reading it with the vague hope that he managed to grow up OK – that’s how real he seems to me. Mrs. Cleary is not just a good children’s writer, BTW – she’s a good writer, period. Her autobiography was written in a very different style than her children’s books. Very bittersweet, but absolutely beautifully written. You can see the genesis of her genious on every page – she really _remembers_ what it feels like to be a kid. What a talented lady. Jess (I’m so relieved she isn’t dead, BTW – the title of this thread about scared me to death! ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beverly-cleary/117477/49 "2002-07-15T23:18:49Z")
These books are from the _1950s_!!! Always thought they were a lot newer… ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2002, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beverly-cleary/117477/50 "2002-07-16T02:50:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by dantheman \* > \*\*These books are from the _1950s_!!! Always thought they were a lot newer… \*\* I’d have thought the lack of black characters would have clued you in. ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2002, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beverly-cleary/117477/51 "2002-07-16T03:04:02Z")
She started writing in the 1950s, but kept on writing up until the present day. She never really set a firm time frame for the events in the books. Ramona gets a few years older, yet she is still a child even in the most recent books. I particularly remember _Ramona and Her Father_ coming out in the late 1970s. This is the one where her father is laid off and has a hard time finding another job, very appropriate to the economic situation at the time, when this issue was something that many children were dealing with. So depending when you first picked up a BC book, and which one it was, it might have “felt” very contemporary. The newest Ramona book, _Ramona’s World_ came out just a few years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2002, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beverly-cleary/117477/52 "2002-07-16T03:48:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Glory \* > \*\* > > Not exactly. IIRC they made up after the big rat/May Pole dress where Ellen helped Augustine when her mask slipped over her eye and she couldn’t see. > > As far as their moms buying matching dresses, a constant theme of the Beverly Cleary books were families with lots of love, but not much money. \*\* No they did not. It was ELLEN’S mask that slipped. Augustine and Linda were talking in the dressing room. Ellen overheard them, and Augustine said, “If it was Ellen, I wouldn’t have helped her, after she hit me like that!” They did NOT make up until they were both sent to clap erasers. Also, as for making/buying dresses, keep in mind-Augustine’s mother always bought her daughter dresses anyways. Ellen’s mother made them. The money spent on material could probably have gotten them a simple dress. So that wasn’t the problem. ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2002, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beverly-cleary/117477/53 "2002-07-16T04:12:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bryan Ekers \* > \*\* > > I’d have thought the lack of black characters would have clued you in. \*\* Oh, right. Cause you know they **just** added black characters to stories recently, like last year. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2002, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beverly-cleary/117477/54 "2002-08-06T12:52:50Z")
I’m resurrecting this thread to point out a major inconsistency in the Ramona books. My older edition of \*\* Beezus and Ramona \*\* gives Aunt Beatrice’s full name as \*\* Beatrice Ann Haswell **. However, in \*\* Ramona Forever** , during all her wedding festivities, her father is referred to as \*\* Grandfather Day \*\*. How did that happen? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Wrong\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b782af/32.png) [@The\_Wrong\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Wrong_Girl)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2002, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beverly-cleary/117477/55 "2002-08-06T14:38:07Z")
Hmm…that’s interesting, **Annie-XMas** , and I’m not sure, but I’m glad that you bumped this thread! For some reason, the one moment in the Ramona books that really sticks out in my mind was when Ramona got sick at school (IIRC, this was in “Ramona Forever,” and she threw up in front of her class), then her mom came to get her in a taxi cab. It just seemed so traumatic–it really stuck with me. ---
**Author:** ![Sunshine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Sunshine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunshine)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2002, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beverly-cleary/117477/56 "2002-08-06T14:55:54Z")
Let me jump on the Ramona bandwagon…loved all of Cleary’s books, especially _Ribsy_. The way I remember the Ellen/Austine dress drama was that BOTH mothers made dresses (Austine’s was not store bought) and since Austine’s mother had never made a dress before, hers was very poorly made and hastily thrown together and nowhere near as cute as Ellens, and that’s why she kept untying the sash. One of my favorite Ramona episodes–pants for Ella Funt. Hee! ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2002, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beverly-cleary/117477/57 "2002-08-06T17:03:00Z")
If you scroll down this page, you’ll see the copyright dates of Beverly Cleary’s books. [http://www.edupaperback.org/authorbios/Cleary\_Beverly.html](http://www.edupaperback.org/authorbios/Cleary_Beverly.html) ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2002, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beverly-cleary/117477/58 "2002-08-06T21:56:45Z")
Yes, that was true-they both made dresses, and poor Augustine’s mother had never sewn before. I remember the Haswell/Day thing. Also, Howie went from being a nerdy sort of neighbor Ramona was forced to put up with to her best friend. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beverly-cleary/117477.md?page=2)