Sometimes, news of someone’s death makes me pause, my body coming to a full stop for a long moment as I absorb and try to process a fast-moving stream of Twitter headlines. With the news of Beverly Cleary’s passing at 104 (104!!) I had a moment like that, sadness mixing with awe.
I wanted to write this yesterday, but it was the first night of Passover, so much of my day was spent in the kitchen, making charoset like countless other people were doing, simmering soup and mixing matzo balls with schmaltz, and crafting food out of recipes that might stretch back generations. Multiple generations were likely creating the same scents and textures I was, using the recipes of a previous generation to serve the next.
While stirring and chopping and simmering, I read obituaries and accounts of Cleary’s impact on their lives as young readers, and one repeated aspect of these stories matched my tasks for the day: multiple generations of readers know who Ramona was, and Beezus, and Ribsy, and Henry, and Ellen. Adults who read Cleary’s books themselves were reading them to the young people in their lives, and remembering their own experiences as very young people meeting characters whose lives were so relatable, ordinary, and memorable, connecting across many years with a similar experience.
Anyone else thinking about how the dawnzer gives a lee light? I definitely was.
For me, Cleary’s books were one of the first times I recognized as a Very Young Sarah that while I loved books, not all books were the same. (I know, shocking.) Not every book I read was able to transport me into the story, make me laugh, or deliver the same experience. With Cleary’s novels, I learned that books are indeed great, but sometimes books with a specific author’s name on them were really great. And if they feature familiar characters in new adventures, they were exceptionally great. (I was very young, and I grin at my former self.)
Cleary’s novels left me with indelible character memories, like the dawnzer and its lee light, Ramona getting a haircut with a heart-shaped point in the front (and Beezus getting a very different hairstyle), pancakes slashed down the middle as parents quarreled, and Ribsy running towards Henry in a scene that made me cry for everyone involved.
I can’t remember if I have told this story before, but when I was in elementary school, I think around 1983, there was a school program called “Passport to Pittsburgh” wherein we (and by “we” I mean every third grader in the public school system) were encouraged to write letters to famous people to try to convince them to visit us in Pittsburgh. This strikes me now as a high-octane horrible idea, like the terrible cousin of having children write to authors with interview questions for class assignments that will be graded poorly if the author doesn’t respond.
I wrote to Beverly Cleary care of her publisher, trying to convince her to visit me in Pittsburgh (seriously, the chutzpah of this whole project is astonishing). But Beverly Cleary wrote me back, a handwritten letter thanking me for the invitation, mentioning that she had been to Pittsburgh and it was indeed a lovely city, but declining the visit as her schedule was very busy. I mentioned it to my teacher, thinking it was no big deal because that passport to Pittsburgh was not going to be used, but she and the other teachers were very excited that I’d received a written reply – which says a lot about the success and ridiculousness of this project. It likely yielded a large number of form letter replies, and I don’t think Passport to Pittsburgh was repeated, thank all three rivers.
The teachers asked to see my letter, so I brought it in. A picture of Ms. Cleary’s reply letter ended up as part of a broadcast when the ‘winners’ of the program were interviewed on the noon news. I don’t recall if any actual celebrities showed up in Pittsburgh (seriously, who thought this was a great idea?!) but I don’t think I ever got the letter back after it was sent to the news channel for inclusion, either. I wonder how many other children wrote to her for assignments or, good gravy, city wide promotional tourism campaigns, and how many received replies. I do remember thinking, wow, she wrote me a letter. It even said, “Dear Sarah,” at the top! And aside from that experience, her books often brought me a similar feeling of being recognized and understood, because the world was really weird and strange, and adults were often difficult to understand.
And then, when I was older, I found Cleary’s YA romances, like Fifteen, Jean & Johnny, and my absolute favorite, The Luckiest Girl. All the compassionate understanding of a young person’s turbulent internal emotional landscape, NOW WITH MORE YEARNING!? Sign me up!
Oh, yeah. And The Luckiest Girl still held up when I re-read and reviewed it in 2011:
Many characters describe Shelley as perpetually having an expression on her face as if something exciting is about to happen…. She had joy, and excitement, and in having fun and making the best of every day, she learned who she was, and what she valued, and who she loved. Hers is a story of autonomy and strength, told in a wonderfully innocent narrative and voice, and even though the book is 50 years old, it still spoke to me just as much as it did when I read it at 14. It taught me so much about what I wanted in a relationship, and I didn’t realize how much I’d absorbed from the story until I read it again this past week.
Yet again, I didn’t fully appreciate how much Beverly Cleary and her books were present at different yet important parts of my childhood and my teen years as a reader of a lot of fiction. It’s quite an extraordinary thing to live to be 104, and to have written so many books that were read and loved and shared among friends and across generations. It’s truly incredible to say of someone’s work, “I loved those stories and my children love them, too.” The funny moments still lurk in my mind, like the heroine from Fifteen carrying a bouquet of massive gladiolus up the street, thinking of herself as Burnham Wood creeping up to Dunsinane.
The shared emotional experience of Beverly Cleary’s books, the humor and familiarity and deep resonance that spans generations of readers, is a gift and a wondrous thing, and her memory is absolutely a blessing.
What about you? Did you have a favorite Cleary book, or scene that stuck with you? (Was it the gladiolus or the pancakes?)
I’m not sure I can eloquently convey what Beverly Cleary meant to me as a young reader. I think she influenced my early love of books more than any author other than Judy Blume (who I hold in the same esteem as a true icon of literature).
When I was 7 I named our new kittens Beezus and Ramona because they were sisters in my favorite books. I think reading the Ramona books was when I first experienced the power of the universal in the specific. I never squeezed the entire tube of toothpaste out like Ramona did, but I know the feeling of wanting to do something like that so badly your fingers itch. I always thought of Ramona when I was sick at school and grateful I never threw up on the floor in front of everyone. I also think about some of the moments from the books now as a parent too- like Ramona sketching with her father and trying to sew pants for her stuffed elephant with her mother.
The Ramona books were the first ones I read where I felt I had to read every single one and I had to have them on my shelf, so I could return to them whenever I wanted.
I remember reading my first Cleary book in the early 1960s with astounding clarity. What made Cleary’s writing particularly remarkable was that for several years on my way to school in Portland, OR I passed by the street where Ramona (and Cleary!) lived, Klickitat Street, and would recite the names of the streets where her friends lived and played as the car drove by. Cleary’s world seemed so comforting and familiar to me, despite living in a world that was utterly foreign to the young, neuro-divergent, highly introverted, disappointing child that I was. Cleary’s books were home when I had no idea what that meant. 104 years making this world a better place… What more could one ask of a life? Rest in peace — or just keep telling stories wherever you are!
I loved Ramona, and I loved the YA books, too, maybe more. I don’t remember the title of the one where the heroine’s older sister is getting married, but idea of the removed label cans in the pantry ignited my young imagination and has stayed with me ever since. Yesterday, I reread some scenes from Ramona books. The wisdom is still amazing. The climax of Beezus and Ramona is simply Beezus learning it’s okay to hate your sister occasionally. Most authors would have thought it was boring. But it was revealing and affirming for readers. Who writes books that poignant? Cleary was one for the ages.
Beverly Cleary was not part of my growing up, but she became a line of bonding with my younger goddaughter. She had a lot of challenges growing up. She was a handful growing up. She was (and is) a chatterbox. She was clumsy and her attention was always on what was next instead of the now. One of her grade school teachers told her she’d never amount to anything. GRADE SCHOOL!!
And then came Ramona. A Beverly Cleary book was a sure fire way to bring her joy. And since I love talking books, I’d have long conversations with her which sometimes were just her telling me everything that happened in the book. But it led to conversations about other books and then her friends and then school problems and then boys and then plans for the future. So I thank Beverly Cleary for her help making me someone a little girl could turn to when her family lost their patience.
Oh, and fuck you Mrs. Whatever your name was, you pitiful excuse for a teacher, my girl is an MSW working in children and family services, she’s training to hike the Appalachian Trail and is 117 kinds of awesome.
My childhood was spent in England, so in the 1960s I was likely reading Enid Blyton or someone similar instead of Beverly Clearly. However, when my children were growing up in the USA, Beezus and Ramona (along with Junie B. Jones, Amelia Bedilia, and the kids from the Magic Treehouse) were fixtures in our home. At about that time, I was also working as a library aide in an elementary school, where an entire shelf in FIC C was devoted to Cleary. One of the things that sticks with me now is the book (someone in the Bitchery will undoubtedly remember the title) where Beezus’s dad has lost his job. So many children’s books tend to shy away from adult economic realities, but this one didn’t and I really appreciated Cleary’s empathetic but clear-eyed view of how an unemployed parent affects their children. RIP, Ms. Cleary.
As an aside, Sarah’s “Passport to Pittsburgh” story reminds me of the time someone (at the elementary school where I was working as a library aide) thought it would be a good idea for the students and staff to collect one million of something (pennies? buttons? lost to the mists of time now) so the students would see how huge a million of anything is. Around about 100,000, we were running out of space to store all the items and eventually the project was permitted to die a quiet death. But I was asking the same question: Who thought this was a good idea?
The ‘young reader’ period of my life was a loooong time ago and I honestly can’t remember reading most of Cleary’s better-known books, except for ‘The Mouse and the Motorcycle.’ I owned that one (probably thanks to the Scholastic program) and read it multiple times. Maybe it’s because up to age 12 or so I was very animal-centric in my fiction tastes. Lots of Jim Kjelgaard and Walter Farley, ‘Lassie’ and ‘Smoky’ and ‘Black Beauty.’ Ralph S. Mouse was a fetching little character, obviously, if I still remember him. 🙂
What a lovely post, Sarah, for a woman who made an incredible impact on many lives.
I didn’t read Beverly Cleary’s books while growing up (another Enid Blyton reader as I was in Australia); however, I got to know her books when my daughter was young. I remember Ramona waiting for the present!
@DDD, my daughter’s elementary school collected one million pennies over the course of several years. They were in a huge Lucite box, and it was an impressive sight!
When I got to “Dawnzer lee Light” in your essay I began laughing out loud and had to explain to my mom who did not read the Ramona books herself, but was often around while I read or listened to them on tape. Like Emily C, these and Judy Blume’s books, mainly the ones about Peter and Fudge, were firm childhood favorites. I did not read as much as a teen, so I still haven’t gotten around to most of their books written for teenagers.
I see everyone talking about Ramona… And I liked Ramona, too, but Ellen Tebbits was the Cleary character I most related to and loved and understood.
It’s been fifty years since I read that book and I can remember scenes in it as if I’d read it yesterday.
Beverly Cleary helped me through a tough childhood.
There are no words to even begin to thank her for that, but I do.
@ty Ellen Tebbits was my favorite Cleary too.
Reading about Beezus and Ramona helped me navigate a childhood relationship with an older sister who sometimes liked me and sometimes didn’t. That moment when Ramona mentions the dawnzer and Beezus makes fun of her cut me to the bone, even as a child. We became great friends later and are still close now, but it wasn’t always like that and I thank Ms. Cleary for the empathy she extended to me and the other Ramonas of the world.
What I miss most is the first time I read these from the library and they were ‘50s/‘60s editions, with all the illustrations and references (Beezus trying to get Ramona to stay away from the davenport!). I wish these were still around; the modernized ones just don’t strike the same—but of course the essentials are eternal!
My favorite was The Mouse and the Motorcycle. Such a great story. I read it in elementary school and created my own imaginary pet mouse friend. I had a small box with a scrap of fabric that I folded so it looked like a mouse was sleeping under it. I “tucked” my pet mouse in his box every night. I wanted to get him a motorcycle but I think I got him a hot wheels car instead. I can still see my little mouse bed in my mind. Such precious memories.
The most memorable part of the Ramona Quimby books is the subplot where she is trying to get her dad to stop smoking and creates signs in crayon. I also liked the commercials Ramona Watches. I found out that these were real since they would have been the same time my mom was a kid.
I always wonder if authors recognize what they mean to readers. Especially authors that were a mainstay of a childhood, and Cleary was writing before video games or Netflix. Books were the entertainment to us. We had 4 TV channels when I was growing up, and they ended transmission at a certain time. Books were the escape into a world where we walked a mile in someone else’s shoes. Her work, which young people still get such a kick out of-what a legacy.
One of the scenes that sticks out to me is when the house is getting a room added, and Ramona goes to school and tells the class that a hole has been chopped in the house and Howie ruins the story for her. Let her enjoy drama, Howie!
I’m so annoyed for you that your letter was not returned to you, Sarah. I know it’s in someone’s scrapbook somewhere!
BURNHAM WOOD COME TO DUNSINANE!!!
I read that book ages ago, but I had no idea it was Beverly Cleary. Gosh she was wonderful, wasn’t she? <3
Sarah, that is a lovely tribute. My first thoughts were of the Dawnzer song and Ella Funt when I saw the news. I also remember having to ask my mother what blueing was.
My older brother gave me a box set of Mrs Cleary’s books for Christmas almost 45 years ago. I loved them and I still have them. The set had two Henry books, Ellen Tibbets, and Ramona and her Father. Later, I would save my allowance to buy all the other books because I had to know what happened to Ramona.
My parents both read for pleasure often and in our view. I knew my mother liked to read mysteries and my father read history and a variety of novels, but the Ramona books were the first ones I remember being the books that were my thing, not ones my brothers and parents had first.
I have a soft spot for Beverly Cleary in part because I think she was my first local author, or at least the first one I was aware of. My mom explained that that “the mall” in Ramona books was the one we went to, because Beverly Cleary was from Portland, and better still she was from our side of the river. My third grade teacher told us she herself grew up on Klickitat street like Romona, which was astounding to me both because a place in a book was in my city, and because I had never imaged Sr. Mary Ann as a kid. In the 90s, none of the books I read took place where I was from. (It was disappointing to learn that the Salem witch-trials did not take place in Salem, OR, and the Oregon trail books all seemed to end when they reached California).
I think I would have wanted to be a writer no matter what, but having the *Romona* books be written by someone who was from the same place as me made it seem a little more possible.
@DiscoDollyDeb, I think that one is Ramona and her Father. I remember that and I think in the end he works as a supermarket cashier and it keeps them afloat. I loved her books and 104 is a long life well-lived.
BC was my childhood. I still go back and read the Ramona series every now and again; it really is a fantastic series.
I was more of a Beezus as a child and Ramona irritated me. I remember Henry Huggins far more clearly. But as a parent, reading them with my children, I really appreciate Cleary’s parents – how real and flawed and loving they are. When Henry’s mother cuts his hair and can’t stop laughing at it, and then convinces all the other mothers to cut their children’s hair as well so he’s not the only one with a terrible haircut – so good! And as others have mentioned, Ramona’s dad losing his job, and a child navigating that upset.
For some reason, though, Socks is the book that really tugs at my heartstrings.
I still have my copies of Socks and of Ramona I received in my Scholastic subscription.
I got to meet Beverly Cleary when Dear Mr. Henshaw came out in the early 80s. I think she was a lovely woman, though, I was ten, so the memories are pretty vague (I still have my autographed copy of Dear Mr. Henshaw, so I have proof it actually happened). I do want to highly recommend, if you haven’t read them, her two autobiographies – A Girl from Yamhill and On My Own Two Feet. They are really fantastic reads, and give you a background into how she came to become a children’s book author (also, her life was lived all along the west coast, so if you grew up there, you will recognize numerous landmarks).
I remember that Ramona names her doll “Chevrolet” since it was the most beautiful word she ever heard! Bless Ms Clearly.I hope she has a good time in heaven!
I first read Cleary as an adult, a mom with daughters to entertain. My girls, particularly the youngest, loved them and so did I because Cleary just got things that no one else did. My younger daughter is a teacher herself now, and still recognizes Ramona as a latter day Everykid. The line “Sit here for the present” absolutely captures the stealth chasms that lie in wait between kids and adults, and we can only be grateful to Beverly Cleary for her vision and her ability to build bridges that have spanned years and generations.
Thank you, Sarah, for this lovely reminiscence. (I too am just catching up online because of charoset-making, etc.)
The Ramona books are that rare thing you loved in childhood/adolescence that’s actually BETTER than you recall. The pop culture and literature of my ’80s youth don’t hold up well (ugh, John Hughes; Ma in Little House on the Prairie is racist, etc.) but when I read Beverly Cleary to my own kids I realized how forward-thinking and nuanced and smart they were. Particularly about CLASS. Ramona’s father going back to school so he can earn a degree and make more money, meaning that her mother has to get a job (as a supermarket checker) and how it distresses her father? The indelible fight about WHOMST forgot to turn on the crock pot, after her parents are late to pick her up at Howie’s (and Howie’s family doesn’t have an extra pork chop!), and they walk into the house and there are NO yummy smells and very little food in the house so they decide to make pancakes, and the parents have an elaborately polite fight about which of THEIR parents made better pancakes? As a child, I knew that fight wasn’t really about pancakes. But it’s only as an adult that I can see all the potent levels there. And Cleary was just so HONEST! One year Ramona has a horrid old white lady teacher who thinks RAMONA copied Susan’s owl drawing (oh, and remember Ramona’s irresistible need to SPROING Susan’s tempting curls?) when it was SUSAN who copied RAMONA’S drawing and she shames Ramona in front of the class. And meanwhile Beezus has a new, cool, young Black male teacher who invites actual conversation. Ramona’s teacher eventually does figure out that hm, Ramona maybe has more depth than she’d thought…but she’s still a crappy old-fashioned teacher who doesn’t GET Ramona. The moral of the story is welp, sometimes you get a shitty teacher and it sucks. But eventually you’ll also probably get a great teacher. Other writers might end with a true rapprochement between teacher and pupil, or Ramona getting to move classrooms, but nope, Cleary was REAL. May her memory be a blessing.
Thanks again, Sarah.
I was the wrong age for the Ramona books, though I do remember Henry Huggins. On the other hand my high-school library was well stocked with what were then called teenage novels. Already long out of fashion, as the “maltshop era” was 10-20 years in the past, but isn’t that always the case with high-school libraries.
@QOTU
the one where the heroine’s older sister is getting married
You’re going to kick yourself, because it’s called Sister of the Bride. I too remember it fondly. (At least in parts. Never did care for the bit where heroine is grieved to learn that her boyfriend’s mother works because she wants to, quite unlike heroine’s mother who works because “teachers were needed”.) The episodes involving grandmother’s antique lace wedding veil remain my favorites.
All these lovely words, the shared memories, the sharp characters, the nostalgia … I’m so grateful to Beverly Cleary, the librarian who introduced us to these new friends, and you who share in this celebration and loss. Thank you Sarah.
I loved reading this post and all the comments. What a wonderful tribute to a remarkable writer and human being.
And I share @ty and @Ellie’s regard for Ellen Tebbits. She was my favorite.
When my Mom got a library card for the local public library — after she and The Electric Company (this was circa 1976) taught me how to read and this voracious baby bibliosaurus had exhausted her home library — the first book she brought home was Ellen Tebbits. (In related news, I have no idea what I had for breakfast today tho…)
You never know Sarah…. maybe you were part of the inspiration for Dear Mr. Henshaw, where the main character rights (repeatedly) to an author.
Henry and his Clubhouse and his dog and his paper router were my Cleary as well as Sister of the Bride …. Beezus was more my level but she didn’t get the billing.
@TLB:
I got so excited on seeing your reference to Mr. Henshaw, which I also thought of when reading that passport to Pittsburgh story, that I accidentally clicked the like button twice. Oops. Lol. Apparently that is possible.
@TLB: LOLOL I’d be so embarrassed, if so!
My very first BC was Otis Spofford, who simply could not stop getting in trouble, nor could he resist bothering proper girl Ellen Tebbits. Until Ellen and her best friend get their revenge, of course…I pulled out my 30+-years-old copy this weekend, and was startled at how serious the book is viewed through an adult’s eyes. Otis is a latchkey kid with a working mother and no dad anywhere in the picture. He doesn’t sneak the class rat food for the heck of it, he does it because he *knows* it’s malnourished (feeding it junk food as a class project) and feels bad for it. He probably has ADHD (how was he to know there would be consequences for his actions?). And he’s still a very likeable and very *real* kid. The book is very dated in spots now, but the characters still ring so true, just like Ramona always has.
I have vague memories of reading some of Beverly Cleary’s books as a kid, but I am in the minority, I guess, as they didn’t seem to leave much of an impact. Certainly not in the way they did for you or for so many other people.
I guess it was because Ramona wasn’t the first unruly girl I’d read – I had the sullen and imperious Mary Lennox from “The Secret Garden”, the unstoppable and strong Pippi Longstocking, the “unnatural” sailor girl Charlotte Doyle, the irrepressible Anne Shirley, and so many other girls who got their hands and clothes dirty, who got into scrapes, who had strong opinions and the courage to vocalize them.
I’ve read all those books too; I don’t think the notion that Ramona was “the first unruly girl” that the rest of us read tracks. Tastes differ! And that’s cool.
However, I would suggest to parents of young kids today that Pippi and Mary are sometimes troubling in our more enlightened time. When the maid, Martha, tells Mary (who has come from India) that she thought she’d be Black, Mary is furious because dark-skinned people “aren’t people— they’re servants who must salaam to you.” Pippi is colonialist as heck — too many examples to count. This doesn’t necessarily mean we shouldn’t read them, just that they certainly require context for today’s kids and some thoughtful work from parents.
That is very cool that she wrote back to you!
I, too, was very young in grade school in the early 80’s, and our teacher would read several books of hers at storytime. Of course I enjoyed Ramona, but I also recall being very interested in The Mouse and the Motorcycle.
Beverly lived at least the last half of her life less than 10 miles from me. Her kids were my age, and her daughter had the locker next to mine in middle school. A few years ago I mentioned somewhere online that she lived near me, and someone got all excited and asked if I could get a book autographed for her. Well, as I explained, I knew which gated retirement community she lived in, but even if I could get past the gate guard, I didn’t know which condo was hers, and just because I lived in the same town didn’t mean I actually KNEW her (I didn’t), and just brazenly knocking on her door (if I knew which door was hers) would be HIGHLY inappropriate! So sorry, no autographs!
If I had to pick, I’d say two of my absolute favorite and memorable moments were Otis and the spitballs, and Ellen trying to keep her winter underwear from sliding down in ballet class. (And I wondered why she didn’t just sneak some summer undies into her ballet bag.)
I remember the earlier books the best, as they were a part of my childhood. I did read the later books as an adult, but they didn’t have quite the same impact.