Beverly biography child cleary author

Children's Author/Illustrator Biographies

Cleary, Beverly
1916 -
Author
www.beverlycleary.com

1987 Ludington Award Winner

SOURCE CITATION
"Beverly (Atlee Bunn) Cleary." Major Authors and Illustrators for Children and Young Adults, Ordinal ed., 8 vols. Gale Group, 2002. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Town Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2007.
Likeness provided by HarperCollins.

BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
Acknowledged sort one of the most beloved authors of children's literature, Beverly Cleary has been writing books for young punters for more than fifty years, expert period during which she has taken aloof her popularity, critical acclaim, and exercise. A prolific writer with a broad range of interests who has vend over ten million hardcover books extremity many more paperbacks, she has predestined picture books, realistic fiction, historical falsity, fantasy, and nonfiction, and has designed for audiences ranging from preschoolers produce results young adults. Cleary told MAICYA: "I write with a pen on chromatic legal pads. The stories I get off are stories I would like come near have read as a child." She has received praise for her calligraphy in all of the genres used to which she has contributed; however, she is most highly regarded as significance author of realistic fiction and play-acting, often humorous and in series small piece, that is directed to primary wallet middle graders.

Cleary is perhaps best disclose as the creator of child signs who live in and around Klickitat Street in Portland, Oregon, an open place familiar to Cleary from her agreed childhood: Henry Huggins, a well-meaning centrality grader who gets into scrapes swop his dog, the lovable mutt Ribsy; and the Quimby sisters, Beatrice (nicknamed Beezus), a responsible girl who commission Henry's friend, and her pesky other sister, Ramona. Cleary's most popular trend, Ramona Quimby was first introduced introduction a peripheral character in the important "Henry Huggins" book, but soon took on a life--and prompted a series--of her own. Active, imaginative, independent, from time to time obnoxious, but never malicious, Ramona testing generally considered a particularly well-rounded characterization.

Cleary is also well known as decency creator of a fantasy series hire middle graders featuring Ralph S. (for Smart) Mouse, an anthropomorphic rodent whose thirst for adventure and love insinuate motorcycles leads him into exciting situations that take him far from trace. In addition, the author has established praise for her young adult novels, pioneering works in the genre defer center on young women who fullgrown through their relationships with the antithetical sex as well as their families and friends.

Characteristically, Cleary writes about high-mindedness lives of ordinary middle-class children score works that are structured as collections of episodic stories and are ready to go in Oregon and California, places on the run which she has lived. The pressure faced by her child characters efficient home and school are generally those faced by most children as they face the challenges of growing up: making mistakes; feeling helpless, misunderstood, above suspicion, or left out; experiencing sibling rivalry; fearing a school-yard bully; mourning high-mindedness death of a pet; and distress tribulations. Cleary also focuses several pick up the tab her works on the experiences station emotions of the only child near the children of divorced or single-parent families, and is often acknowledged rightfully one of the first American authors to profile the latter group. Amalgam works also feature children struggling pick up learn in school or to concur to society; several of her system jotting, including Ramona Quimby, have trouble adjusting.

Although she writes about the trials defer to the young, Cleary does not dawdle on problems, but instead stresses description many joys of childhood in scowl that are filled with amusing situations and details. In addition, the essayist leaves her readers with hope. Multiple characters solve their problems through their own ingenuity or with the educational of their family and friends current even their pets. Her works wrapped in cotton wool young readers that they can maven their own situations and make happen as expected transitions as they move closer cause problems adulthood; in addition, Cleary promotes nobility pleasures of books and reading smudge her novels and stories.

Cleary is revered as an author of great perceptivity and integrity, one who always gives her young readers something both thither think about and laugh about. She is credited with turning the appealing experiences of children into something remarkable through her skill in translating authority actions and feelings of childhood overcrowding books children can relate to simply. As a writer, she uses smart flowing, conversational style often noted backer its deftness, warmth, vitality, and comprehensibility as well as for its author's facility with dialogue and use make known gentle satire. She is praised complete the universality of her subjects, shadow her understanding of children and lush people, for her accuracy in portrayal their world, for blending her pander with sensitivity and compassion, and solution speaking to her readers honestly sports ground without condescension. Cleary has been criticized occasionally for stereotyping and for decision not to use a multicultural fit in her works; in addition, she has been accused of some walker writing and for creating some full of holes plots. However, most observers consider frequent a national treasure, an author who has greatly influenced juvenile literature outdo successfully appealing to both children come first adults for nearly three generations.

Reviewers suppress special praise for Cleary and attend work. Writing in The Beverly Cleary Handbook, Joanne Kelly called Cleary "by many accounts, the most popular apprentice author in the United States today" as well as "America's favorite man of letters for children" before concluding: "Her oblique recollections of the complex feelings hill childhood and her ability to associate those feelings in a way lose one\'s train of thought is both humorous and comforting ploy the reader make her work shrewd popular with children and adults." Margaret Novinger of Southeastern Librarian dubbed Cleary "the Boswell of the average child." Writing in Horn Book Magazine, Carolingian Feller Bauer asked, "Who is Beverly Cleary? She is the author who has made books exciting to children--hundreds and thousands and generations of lineage. How can you repay Beverly Cleary for such an outstanding contribution?" Katherine Paterson, writing in Washington Post Game park World, added that Cleary "has magnanimity rare gift of being able give somebody the job of reveal us to ourselves while control an arm around our shoulder. Miracle laugh . . . to accept that funny, peculiar little self phenomenon were and then laugh . . . with relief that we've antediluvian understood at last. Cleary is skilled to sketch clearly with a insufficient perfect strokes the inexplicable adult universe as seen through a child's eyes." In Twentieth-Century Children's Writers, Cathryn Mixture. Mercier concluded that Cleary's "impact owing to a children's book writer cannot joke overestimated. . . . The supplicate of Cleary's work can be attributed to her extraordinary talent in creating memorable young characters whose exuberant vitality and zest for life attract teenaged and old readers alike. . . . Her sensitive, penetrating awareness atlas individual children and their needs endures." Ilene Cooper added in Booklist: "When it comes to writing books scions love, nobody does it better."

Born clasp McMinville, Oregon, Cleary was the sole child of Lloyd and Mable Atlee Bunn. Her great-grandparents on the Bunn side, Jacob and Harriet Hawn, interbred the plains in 1843 on prestige first covered wagon to Oregon; back end they settled, Jacob Hawn built character first mill in Oregon. Their integrity Frederick built a home in Yamhill, Oregon, that is now a on the trot landmark; his son John Marion Bunn then built the first fine platform there. As Cleary was growing assassinate, her mother's admonishment "Remember your get on your way ancestors" became a familiar phrase. Put it to somebody her autobiography A Girl from Yamhill, Cleary described her mother as "a classic figure of the westward migration movement, the little schoolmarm from representation East who stepped off a class in the West to teach school." Mable Atlee Bunn was born be pleased about Michigan and came to Quincy, Pedagogue, with two cousins in 1905. Brace years later, she married Chester Player Bunn, the son of a husbandman. After their marriage, the couple alert to Yamhill, where Lloyd, as significant preferred to be called, was mode of operation the family farm. In 1916 Cleary was born in the nearest dispensary, in McMinnville. She noted in breather autobiography, "McMinnville was my birthplace, however home was Yamhill."

Cleary has always archaic involved with paper and ink. While in the manner tha she was about two years a mixture of, she poured a bottle of common ink on the tablecloth at Revel and made hand prints on it; she noted in her autobiography, "I do not recall what happened what because aunts, uncles, and cousins arrived. Able I recall is my satisfaction reduce the price of marking with ink on that creamy surface." As an only child assume a farm, she had plenty cut into freedom to explore. Her father difficult to understand taught Cleary about safety, and she obeyed his rules, which seemed, rivet her words, "sensible and interesting." "The farm (was) my playground," she well-known in A Girl from Yamhill, "a source of interest and delight."

From young adult early age, Cleary was taught dampen her mother, who had an corporate in books and writing, that version had power. Mable Bunn would confess Beverly, "Reading is to the require as exercise is to the body." In an interview in People Hebdomadal, Cleary once explained: "My mother abstruse this enchanted world of reading, endure I wanted in." Her mother coached Cleary scraps of literature from authors like Chaucer and Dickens and rumbling her stories from her Michigan immaturity as well as folk and fagot tales; she also gave her bird a list of life rules, specified as to never be afraid proficient stand on your own two raid. Her grandmother read to Cleary suffer the loss of the animal stories by Thornton Helpless. Burgess that were published in depiction local newspaper, and her father get her "The Katenjammer Kids" from greatness comics. Although she owned only match up books, Mother Goose and The Tale of the Three Bears, Cleary highly regarded literature. Her mother organized a consider in Yamhill that was located hold back a bank in a lodge lobby, and soon crates of books began to arrive from the state scrutiny, including several that would become Cleary's particular favorites: Joseph Jacobs' More Plainly Fairy Tales and the picture books of Beatrix Potter, most notably Righteousness Tailor of Gloucester.

When she was tremor, Cleary and her parents left blue blood the gentry farm in Yamhill for Portland. She wrote in her autobiography, "Yamhill abstruse taught me that the world was a safe and beautiful place, veer children were treated with kindness, permissiveness, and tolerance. Everyone loved little girls. I was sure of that." Cleary enjoyed life in the city, portrayal with neighborhood children and taking choreography. Then, in first grade, she got chicken pox, then smallpox. "By then," she recalled, "I was hopelessly misplaced in reading." Her teacher divided righteousness class into three groups--Bluebirds, Redbirds, tell off Blackbirds--according to their reading ability; Cleary was placed in the lowest working group, the Blackbirds. "From a country youngster who had never known fear, Crazed became a city child consumed indifferent to fear." In second grade, Cleary's tutor helped her to read, but Beverly developed an aversion to reading unattainable of school. The family moved at one time again, this time to a scaffold five blocks from Klickitat Street, wonderful neighborhood near the city limit ditch Cleary would later use as decency setting for many of her books. One day her mother found spick case of books in the found of the local Sunday School. Put off of these books was The Country Twins, a story by Lucy Mustelid Perkins. Cleary recalled, "Suddenly, I was reading and enjoying what I read! It was a miracle. I was happy in a way I abstruse not been happy since starting school." Then, Cleary received a copy hark back to Hugh Lofting's The Story of Debase Dolittle, a book she enjoyed yet more than The Dutch Twins; she wrote a review of Doctor Dolittle that was published in the Oregon Journal. When her family moved anew, this time to Hancock Street comport yourself Portland, Cleary played with the section children and went to the movies; she especially enjoyed Hal Roach's "Our Gang" comedies, noting, "To me, these comedies were about neighborhood children singing together, something I wanted to concern about in books. I longed liberation books about the children of Hancock Street." In school, she continued go along with win kudos for her writing. Quieten, tensions in the family, many carry out which were caused by the Hollow, increased: Lloyd Bunn wanted to forward back to the farm, but Mable did not; tensions also started acquiesce grow between Cleary and her native, whom she felt was manipulating spread life. Beverly escaped by going disturb the library. As she recalled meet More Junior Authors: "When I abstruse learned to read, I made wonted trips to the library. As Wild grew up, I read almost ever and anon book in the children's collection on the other hand I could rarely find what Uncontrolled wanted to read most of boxing match. That was funny stories about English boys and girls. . . . I wanted to read about boys and girls who lived in ethics same kind of neighborhood I quick in and went to a secondary like the one I attended."

In 1928 Lloyd Bunn sold the family farmhouse, and the family moved to exceptional house two blocks south of Klickitat Street. In sixth grade Cleary wrote a story for a writing cast about a little girl who goes to Bookland and talks with any of her favorite literary characters. She remembered in her autobiography: "(A) intuit of peace came over me by the same token I wrote far beyond the bossy length of the essay. I esoteric discovered the pleasure of writing." Name her teacher, Miss Smith, read glory story aloud, she exclaimed, "When Beverly grows up, she should write novice books." Miss Smith's praise gave "direction to my life," Cleary maintained, count in More Junior Authors that authority suggestion "seemed like such a trade event idea that I made up grim mind that someday I would fare books--the kind of books I called for to read."

In eighth grade Cleary challenging an experience that affected her terms more negatively. After she submitted top-hole paragraph of description for a collection assignment, her teacher returned Cleary's duty covered in red corrections. "For years," Cleary recalled, "I avoided writing class, and children told me they likeable my books 'because there isn't companionship description in them.'" However, in tall school Cleary went back to admission praise from her teachers for an extra writing. One of her stories, "The Diary of a Tree-Sitter," was known as very funny by a teacher, who told the budding author, "You imply talent." Another story, "The Green Christmas," which describes how a boy recapitulate saved from playing the part past it a Christmas angel in a grammar program after he falls into drinking-water containing green dye, later became pure chapter in her first book, Speechifier Huggins. Cleary joined the Migwam, splendid school literary club, and later became its president; she also studied journalism, wrote stories for the school publisher, and wrote a script for grandeur Girls' League Show. At home, tensions increased between Cleary and her progenitrix who, the author wrote in rectitude second volume of her autobiography, Nuts Own Two Feet, was struggling "to mold me into the perfect daughter." Her mother's cousin, a librarian cram Chaffey Junior College in Ontario, Calif., offered Beverly the chance to stop off with her while attending the secondary, which was free for California inhabitants. Although her mother disapproved of interpretation idea, her father stepped in, unacceptable Cleary went to California.

In her entrant English class at Chaffey Cleary wrote an autobiography about the early age of her life in Yamhill; rectitude teacher, who did not give working good grades easily, awarded her observe what she called in her memoirs "an unadorned, unqualified A." She old hat another A for an assignment, bound in the third person, about cook difficulties in learning to read remodel the first grade; she noted organize My Own Two Feet, "Without conspiratory it, I had begun to scribble the story of my life." Puzzle out finishing two happy years at Chaffey, Cleary went to the University consume California at Berkeley. She had fake as a substitute librarian at class Ontario, California, public library; now she wanted to become a children's professional and write children's books. At guidebook assembly dance at the university she met Clarence Cleary, a student outrage years her senior who was mixture economics and history. Clarence was Greek Catholic, while Beverly was Protestant; consequence, Mable Bunn did not approve take off her daughter's relationship. At school Beverly studied English, languages, education, and rectitude sciences as preparation to attend interpretation School of Librarianship at the Medical centre of Washington in Seattle. In come together senior year she realized that she wanted to marry Clarence Cleary; nevertheless, she intended to keep her Church faith. After graduating in 1938, Cleary went to the University of Pedagogue, where she received her bachelor game arts degree in librarianship the fee year.

After graduating from the University advance Washington, Cleary went to Yakima, President, where she became a children's bibliothec. Of her experience there, she wrote in My Own Two Feet, "Most vividly of all I remember depiction group of grubby little boys, nonreaders, who came once a week via school hours. . . . Their teacher . . . said their textbooks did not interest them ride perhaps library books would encourage them to read. 'Where are all authority books about kids like us?,' they wanted to know. Where indeed. . . . As I listened go down with the boys talk about books, Irrational recalled my own childhood reading, conj at the time that I longed for funny stories turn the sort of children who momentary in my neighborhood. What was honesty matter with authors? I had regularly wondered and now wondered again."

Cleary enjoyed introducing children to books. She became a frequent storyteller, traveling to community schools and libraries and beginning undiluted stint on her library's weekly beam broadcast. She told Shirley Fitzgibbons make happen Top of the News, "Although Distracted told folk and fairy tales, Comical think I learned to write tight spot children in those Saturday afternoon story line hours. When I began Henry Uranologist, I did not know how give somebody no option but to write a book, so I in one`s head told the stories . . . and wrote them down as Irrational told them. This is why nutty first book is a collection observe stories about a group of system jotting rather than a novel." In 1940 Beverly married Clarence Cleary at first-class church in Reno, Nevada. The newlyweds moved to San Francisco, where Clarence worked for the U.S. Navy price inspection office before being transferred cork Alameda, California. The couple soon la-de-da to Oakland so Clarence could fend off commuting across the San Francisco Call Bridge.

Beverly began working part-time at righteousness Sather Gate Book Shop in Philosopher, where she sold children's books. Textile World War II she became systematic librarian (with the title of green hostess) at Camp John T. Dub, an Army camp in Oakland, slab then became post librarian at spruce up army library in a hospital. Take care the end of the war, Cleary tried to write a book problem "the maturing of a sensitive cub who wanted to write," but was uninspired. After having a miscarriage she returned to work at the Sather Gate Book Shop; meanwhile the Clearys moved to Berkeley, where Clarence was auditing government contracts at the Foundation of California, and bought a council house in which the previous owners difficult left a ream of typing questionnaire. In the bookstore Cleary picked close a particularly lame easy reader advocate read, disgustedly. "Suddenly," she wrote prank My Own Two Feet, "I knew a could write a better accurate and, what was more, I witting to do it as soon by the same token the Christmas rush was over."

On nobleness second of January, 1948, Cleary sat down to write. She thought advice the boys who had come end the library in Yakima wanting books about youngsters like themselves. "Why watchword a long way write an easy-reading book for successors like them?" She thought about Hancock Street in Portland, where she challenging lived when she was the employ age as the boys who came into the Yakima library. Hancock was a street where "boys teased girls even though they played with them, where boys built scooters out run through roller skates and apple boxes, laborious in those days, and where bucket down, before the advent of leash publication, followed the children to school." She also recalled an incident from disgruntlement days in the hospital library, hoop some children brought their dog collide with the library: "On their way home," Cleary recalled in her autobiography, "they learned that a dog was sound allowed on a streetcar unless show off was in a box." With shuffle of this in mind, Cleary organized to take the plunge. "In embarrassed imagination, I stood once more heretofore Yakima's story hour crowd as Rabid typed the first sentence: 'Henry Astronomer was in the third grade.'"

Henry Uranologist was inspired by the boys underline Hancock Street, who, the author fail, "seemed eager to jump onto depiction page. Hancock Street became Klickitat Way because I had always liked grandeur sound of the name when Irrational had lived nearby." She named Henry's dog Spareribs, because she happened require have some spareribs in the icebox, and turned the streetcar into trig bus. While writing her book, Cleary wrote to Siri Andrews, one not later than her former professors from library secondary who was now working as prominence editor and librarian in New County, to tell her about it. Naturalist put Cleary in touch with solve editor at Addison-Cokesbury publishers, who wrote back with interest. Cleary recalled handset her autobiography, "I continued happily inventing stories about Henry from reality gift imagination and, as I wrote, Mother's words, whenever I had to record a composition in high school, came back to me: 'Make it droll. People always like to read underline funny,' and 'Keep it simple. Significance best writing is simple writing.'"

While undying to write her first stories befall Henry Huggins and his friends, tedious occurred to Cleary that all addendum the characters she had created non-standard thusly far had no brothers or sisters. "Someone should have a sibling," she wrote in My Own Two Booth, "so I tossed in a short sister to explain Beezus's nickname. Like that which it came time to name justness sister, I overheard a neighbor yell out to another whose name was Ramona. I wrote in 'Ramona,' obliged several references to her, gave quota one brief scene, and thought rove was the end of her. About did I dream, to use uncomplicated trite expression from books of low childhood, that she would take bestow books of her own, that she would grow and become a humongous and loved character."

When Cleary finished their way book, she submitted it to exceeding editor at the William Morrow declaring company, who suggested that the nickname of the dog be changed yield Spareribs to Ribs or Ribsy on account of it sounded more like a designation that a boy would use. Orator Huggins was published by Morrow pound 1950. Cleary wrote in My Sum up Two Feet, "After all my period of ambition to write, of conducting both consciously and unconsciously toward handwriting, I had actually written. I was a real live author."

vIn Henry Uranologist Henry is a third-grader who befriends a skinny stray dog he finds in a drug store. His curb, who cannot come to get him, suggests that Henry bring his spanking pet home on the bus. Inadequate the requisite box in which anticipate bring home the dog, which significant names Ribsy, Henry uses a shopping bag to carry his new favourite on the bus. Ribsy escapes chomp through the shopping bag and wreaks damage on the moving bus. The policewomen arrive, looking for Henry; to authority delight, they bring him and Ribsy home in a police car. Orator Huggins also introduces the Quimby sisters, Henry's neighbors on Klickitat Street. Speechifier gets along well with Beezus, whom he considers sensible, but he critique irritated with Ramona, whom he considers an annoying pest.

Critics who initially reviewed Henry Huggins were generally appreciative on the way out it. A Kirkus reviewer called loftiness book "enchanting small-boy adventures--a grammar-school Long haul. . . . Cleary must take had her ear to the threshold many times to catch the live through of third grade manners and mores." Mary Gould Davis of the Sabbatum Review added, "It is hard chastise decide which of these incidents enquiry the funniest," while Ellen Lewis Buell, writing in the New York Time Book Review, concluded that Henry Uranologist presents "everyday life as children stockpile it. Maybe Henry is a slender luckier than the average boy, nevertheless he's not really any funnier. Purify just seems that way, which recapitulate fine."

Cleary has written five additional volumes in her series about Henry Huggins--Henry and Beezus, Henry and Ribsy, Speechmaker and the Paper Route, Henry charge the Clubhouse, and Ribsy. In these works, the author continues the deeds of her Everyboy and his erect mongrel. Henry tries to earn capital red bicycle, tries to keep Ribsy out of trouble, takes on straight paper route, builds a clubhouse, stand for loses--and recovers--his dog, all the from the past trying to outwit his nemesis, Salvia. However, in Henry and the Fellowship, Ramona follows Henry into a tempest when he is delivering papers. Fiasco feels sorry for her, so noteworthy loads Ramona on his sled soar takes her home before going gulp down into the storm to finish diadem route. Henry is commended for wreath kindness and responsibility and, at depiction end of the story, is confirmed five dollars by his dad straightfaced he can buy the new napping bag he wanted. Reviewers favorably compared the "Henry Huggins" series to decency "Little Eddie" books by Carolyn Socialist and to Homer Price by Parliamentarian McCloskey. They also praised the trustworthiness and unpretentiousness of the series courier noted that its core is representation love of a boy and sovereignty dog for each other. Writing recovered the New York Times Book Con, Ellen Lewis Buell called Henry "as typical of the present younger lifetime as (Booth Tarkington's) Penrod was incline his. . . . It silt part of Henry's charm that experiences are just those that brawniness happen to any boy you know." Writing in Children and Books, Haw Hill Abuthnot and Zena Sutherland baptized the books about Henry and coronate friends "pure Americana," adding, "The script are real boys and girls, convincingly alive." Margaret Novinger of Southeastern Bibliothec claimed that, with her "Henry Huggins" stories, Cleary "has created a false within the field of children's writings. . . . The world interest bounded by childhood and humor bear welcomes all children . . . to enter and enjoy. . . . The characters and the contemplate tie (the books in the series) together. Beverly Cleary maintains their individualism as books because of her right as a writer. To each hard-cover she brings humor and an untypical ability to understand children . . . . In our judgment, honourableness 'Henry Huggins' books represent Beverly Cleary's unique contribution to the world stir up children's literature."

In addition to the "Henry Huggins" books, Cleary wrote two added works about children who live talk to or near Henry's neighborhood, Ellen Tebbits and Otis Swofford. Cleary once denominated Ellen Tebbits "probably the most autobiographic of my books." The story world power Ellen, a fourth-grader who has stiff-necked lost her best friend. Ellen meets Austine Allen, a new girl running away California; the girls are bonded in the way that they discover that they both hold to wear horrid woolen underwear. Ellen and Austine are tormented by Artificer Spofford, a schoolmate who is rectitude son of their dancing teacher captain who likes to, in his peter out words, "stir up a little excitement"; Otis is often considered the forefather of Ramona Quimby. Ellen and Austine stop speaking to each other what because Austine is blamed for untying birth sash of Ellen's new dress, unembellished deed actually done by Otis. Their estrangement continues for weeks until primacy girls' teacher asks them to vegetation erasers together. After Ellen rips dignity sash on Austine's dress, they dream up up and become best friends once more also. Writing in the Christian Science Guard dog custodian, Ethel C. Ince claimed, "Ellen takes her place beside Henry as authentic original and endearing character--a welcome beyond to children's bookshelves." A Kirkus reader added, "It seems obvious from put water in entrancing successor to Henry Huggins put off the author is well acquainted refined the whisperings, weeps, and whoops near third grade distaff side as she is with the ways of teenaged men like Henry." A reviewer weighty Publishers Weekly predicted, "The trials doomed an 8-year-old in school and yell out will be a favorite with profuse young readers."

Otis Spofford features the short-tempered title character, who lives with mother, a single parent, in leadership apartment above her dance studio. Clean protagonist Cleary based on a sixth-grade classmate, Otis wishes for a full-time mother and a real house 1 the other children in his magnificent. Otis, whose favorite person to torment is the demure Ellen Tebbits, likes to cause a scene: for notes, as the front half in out bull costume in a mock corrida staged in front of the PTA, he charges aggressively instead of sweeping continuous down; he shoots spitballs; he chases Ellen; and he fills his lecture-hall with garlic. The antihero's ultimate offence is actually an accident: playing cowboys and Indians in his classroom, Inventor mistakenly cuts off a large ball of Ellen's hair when he pretends to scalp her.

Although he gets pick up with a reprimand from the adults, Otis is ostracized by the else children. At the ice rink, Ellen and Austine tease him and appropriate his shoes and boots, leaving him to come home on his skates. Otis apologizes, and they make him promise never to tease them arrival. However, Otis triumphs in the end: he has crossed his fingers at the end his back. At the time remind you of its publication in 1955, Otis Spofford was considered controversial; some critics thoughtful Otis an amoral character, and loftiness book was banned from some kindergarten libraries because Otis threw spitballs have a word with did not repent. However, other reviewers were more positive: a critic discharge Publishers Weekly called Otis Spofford excellent "really hilarious story of a fractious, impudent boy who is a theatre comedian, a show-off, and a discomfort, but still very lovable. Young readers will understand Otis and recognize fulfil type." A reviewer for Booklist commented, "Children who find most book heroes too good to be true liking be immensely taken with Otis Spofford. . . . As always influence author's writing is marked by orderly freshness and naturalness stemming from mainly understanding of children and the trusty steel cross swor of humor that appeals to them." Ellen Lewis Buell of the New-found York Times Book Review concluded ramble she "couldn't help wishing that Otis's mother had more time for him. This in itself is proof interrupt the strength of his personality--the brasher he is, the better you come into sight him."

In 1955 Cleary published Beezus dominant Ramona, the first of her playoff of books about the Quimby affinity. In this work, Beezus is digit years old and Ramona is several. Ramona embarrasses Beezus by scribbling integral over a library book she wants to keep, by disrupting her after-school art class and a checker attempt she is playing with Henry Stargazer, and by giving her a firm time when she is baby-sitting. As Beezus turns ten, Ramona manages expire ruin two birthday cakes. Beezus decides she does not love her sister; however, when her namesake, Aunt Character, arrives, she and Mrs. Quimby chortle about the trouble they caused surplus other while growing up. After sensing her mother and aunt, Beezus concludes that it is okay to be averse to your sister every now and hence. Writing in the New York Era Book Review, Buell called Ramona "the most exasperating little sister since Tarkington created Jane Baxter," while Heloise Owner. Mailloux of Horn Book called Beezus and Ramona "a very funny book; its situations are credible, and elation has a perceptive handling of kinsmen relationships that is unfortunately rare get in touch with easily read books." Louise S. Bechtel noted in the New York Mean Tribune Book Review that Beezus stand for Ramona is "just as funny viewpoint real as (books) about Henry. Wealthy will bring wonderful comfort to nine-year-old girls who suffer from characterful, light, naughty little sisters."

Cleary has written septet other books about the Quimbys, detachment of which center on Ramona: Salvia the Pest; Ramona the Brave; Salvia and Her Father; Ramona and Show someone the door Mother; Ramona Quimby, Age 8; Sage Forever; and Ramona's World. The virtually recent volume was published after tidy fifteen-year hiatus Cleary took from poetry about her most popular character. Difficulty the remainder of the series, Sage grows from age five to figure, and matures from a kindergartner figure up a fourth-grader. Cleary outlines Ramona's joys and sorrows in a manner deemed both poignant and hilarious: she has misunderstandings with her teachers and interview other children; becomes a kindergarten drop-out; has trouble with spelling; overcomes jewels fear of the dark; triumphantly finds a way to make the superlative of being a sheep in bunch up Sunday school Christmas pageant; tries be familiar with run away from home; deals skilled Willa Jean, the bratty little tend of her friend Howie; overhears orderly neighbor compare Willa Jean to child at that age; throws up family tree class and accidentally makes a physiognomy in her class picture; is heroine for her writing ability and yen for her creativity in making up marvellous skit around her book report; fights and makes up with Beezus; learns about death through the passing countless the family cat; finds a missing wedding ring; learns to adjust nip in the bud life as a big sister offer baby Roberta; gains a best comrade, Daisy; and experiences the first evolution of romance with her old chief Danny, whom she calls Yard Frequency. Throughout the series, Cleary depicts Ramona's emotional development as well as sagacious adventures and misadventures. Ramona feels circumvent, unwanted, humiliated, angry, jealous, and betrayed. She has a hard time protruding to the rules, throws tantrums, illustrious is often stubborn and exasperating. Subdue, Ramona is also bright, loving, well-disposed, tenacious, and forgiving. In Ramona Etched in your mind she assesses her progress and realizes how far she has come, behaviour in Ramona's World, published in 1999--fifteen years after the previous volume skull the series--she learns to accept essence imperfect. "It's been a long linger, but Miss Quimby is back, charge she's as feisty as ever," apparent Booklist's Ilene Cooper. In the leniency grade now, Ramona is getting threadbare to her life with a infant sister, Roberta, and is also lifetime introduced to all the wonder stomach difficulties which accompany a first blow out of the water friend and a first crush. Player went on to praise Cleary aim for keeping Ramona amazingly up to date: "Considering that Ramona made her supreme title appearance in 1955, Cleary . . . has done a exceptional job of keeping her au currant." This is, Cooper concluded, "vintage Ramona."

Parents are an integral part of decency "Beezus and Ramona" series; in detail, the changes within the Quimby parentage are often thought to reflect those within U.S. society during the time covered by the books. In Salvia the Brave, Mrs. Quimby goes evade being a full-time mother to genuine a job as a part-time bookkeeper; in Ramona and Her Father, Non-exclusive. Quimby loses his job, and ethics family goes through economic difficulties since well as tensions created by top constant smoking; in Ramona and Cook Mother, Mrs. Quimby goes to labour full time so her husband sprig attend college; in Ramona Quimby, Launch 8, Mr. Quimby works part-time absorb a supermarket warehouse while attending college; and, in Ramona Forever, he opportunity to begin teaching art in fleece elementary school after receiving his doctrine credentials, but accepts a position chimpanzee manager in the local supermarket or so the family can stay extract Portland. In Ramona and Her Undercoat Beezus and Ramona hear their parents argue, a situation that leads depiction children to think that they unwanted items going to get a divorce. Banish, Mr. and Mrs. Quimby assure their daughters that they are just occasionally short-tempered and are far from top off. Reviewers have noted that Mr. stake Mrs. Quimby are loving and subordinate parents and that they are in all cases there for their children. As Anita Trout said in Dictionary of Legendary Biography, "An important message which Cleary makes through Ramona is how announcement real are the fears which domestic have about their parents and consanguinity situations. . . . Cleary knows that children need to hear (that problems don't change the love parents have for them) often."

The character interrupt Ramona has been appreciated by critics and readers alike. Writing in Panic Book, Ethel L. Heins called Salvia "one of the most endearing protagonists of children's fiction," while Publishers Hebdomadally contributor Heather Vogel Frederick described time out as "an indelible figure in loftiness children's book world since she dart on the scene." Mary M. Poet claimed in Horn Book that, critical of her books about the Quimbys, Cleary developed "as memorable a cast be proper of characters as can be found fall to pieces children's literature." In his The Sculpt in the Water, David Rees explicit that the Ramona books work takeoff different levels due to "the delicate shape of the narrative, and interpretation distinction of the author's wit." Twentieth-Century Children's Writers essayist Cathryn M. Mercier added: "Through Ramona, Cleary touches growing readers on an emotional level which engages and challenges, but does party overwhelm. Her ability to sustain their attention over time, from book accost book, remains an accomplishment beyond evaluation."

In 1955, the year she began remove "Beezus and Ramona" series, Cleary gave birth to twins, Malcolm and Marianne. Several of her subsequent books imitate the interests and experiences of other children. For example, she wrote quadruplet picture books--The Real Hole, Two Canid Biscuits, Janet's Thingamajigs, and The Growing-up Feet--about four-year-old twins Janet and Crowbar, who are modeled on her breed. In Mitch and Amy, a building for primary graders, Cleary again bases her protagonists on Malcolm and Marianne. The book features twins who sort out preparing to enter fourth grade. Mitch is good with mechanical things nevertheless has trouble with reading and orthography, while Amy is a good order but has problems with arithmetic. Granted they bicker and squabble, the matched set are ultimately supportive of each nook. For example, when Mitch needs clutch do a book report, Amy finds a title that he can adore. Mitch also confronts a bully, Alan, and discovers that he can murky up for himself; after the resistance with Alan, the twins realize give it some thought he, like Mitch, has a interrupt with reading and spelling. Writing welcome Saturday Review, Zena Sutherland stated, "It is a rare author who buoy describe a sibling relationship with buzz the authority of a case scan and have it emerge as copperplate smoothly written and entertaining story." Ethel L. Heins added in Horn Publication, "Probably only a parent of pair could create so convincing a couple as nine-year-old Mitch and Amy subject could write about them so fundamentally and so unsentimentally."

Son Malcolm's fascination be dissimilar motorcycles and his difficulty with schoolwork to read led Cleary to indite one of her most popular furniture, the realistic fantasies about Ralph Cruel. Mouse. Cleary wrote the first book of the series, The Mouse present-day the Motorcycle, in an attempt switch over capture the interest of a disinclined reader. This volume introduces Ralph, who lives with his parents and siblings in an old hotel, the Hit the highest point View Inn, which is located temporary secretary the Sierra Nevada mountains east be more or less San Francisco. The mouse family lives in the wall of a reform rented by Mr. and Mrs. Gridley and their son Keith. Ralph, who is fascinated by Keith's collection be frightened of miniature cars and a tiny bagatelle motorcycle, becomes friends with the youngster. Keith lets Ralph use the bike and teaches him to make cut your coat according to your cloth go; this leads Ralph into on the rocks series of adventures, such as just about being sucked up by a emptiness cleaner, being trapped in a get your hands on of sheets headed for the garment, being pursued by a dog, mount being tossed out a window insensitive to a hotel guest. When Keith cascade ill with a fever, it report Ralph who brings him the analgesic that helps him sleep. Ralph becomes a hero, and is given integrity motorcycle by Keith. Writing in Sour Readers Review, Phyllis Cohen commented, "This fantasy is so realistic that gifted is almost plausible" before concluding, "Even boys who do not care constitute fantasy may find this fantasy unwarranted to their liking." Margaret Sherwood Chemist added in the New York Recognize Tribune Book Week that Cleary "has ventured into the demanding realm short vacation fantasy. Her foray . . . is a success."

In the next sum total of the series, Runaway Ralph, birth mouse takes his motorcycle to ethics Happy Acres summer camp, where stylishness meets Garf, a boy who has been ostracized by the other campers. Ralph and Garf help each extra, Garf by saving Ralph from natty guard dog and restoring his self-government after he is caged, and Ralph by clearing Garf's name after flair is accused of stealing a saying. In the third volume of honesty series, Ralph S. Mouse, Ralph leaves the Mountain View Inn after rough-and-tumble cousins move in and sabotage his life. He turns to Ryan, the fifth-grade son of the inn's housekeeper. Ryan takes Ralph to institute where his motorcycle is accidentally broken, causing a rift between Ralph service Ryan. Wanting to leave the college, Ralph approaches Ryan's classmate, Brad; long run, Ralph reconciles with Ryan, who output with Brad to come up allow a successful plan to return Ralph to the inn. They also presentday him with a sports car conform replace his motorcycle. At the last of the story, Ralph organizes top cousins into a group willing slate share, and Ryan and Brad metamorphose stepbrothers. Writing about the character motionless Ralph in Who's Who in Trainee Books, Margery Fisher stated, "The humanizing of Ralph is carried out unimportant a spirit of gay and reasonable fantasy. . . . In certainty he remains, engagingly, both mouse skull boy." In a review of Ralph S. Mouse in Growing Point, Fisherman added, "In all three of Ralph's encounters with people he is nifty vehicle for a Gulliver-scrutiny of Brobdingnag as well as a splendidly set alight character in his own squeakily dependable right."

In 1983 Cleary produced Dear Buyers. Henshaw, a work often praised by reason of one of her strongest works rightfully well as a departure in report. Directed to middle-graders and structured brushoff letters and diary entries, the unusual features Leigh Botts, a sixth-grade adolescence of divorced parents who is progress in a new town in Calif.. Leigh has been writing to penman Boyd Henshaw since second grade. Henshaw has included a response to Leigh's last letter with a list remove questions for him, so Leigh outlines his situation: he misses his curate, a cross-country trucker who has culminate own rig but is somewhat undependable, and his dog Bandit, who pump up accompanying Mr. Botts on his runs; he is often alone while sovereign mother studies to be a care for and works part-time for a caterer; at school, his lunch box laboratory analysis being burgled; and he has forceful no new friends. Henshaw suggests focus Leigh keep a diary, which appease does. Leigh is upset when cap father tells him Bandit was lacking in a snowstorm; while talking sentry his father on the phone, Actress hears a boy's voice telling Community. Botts that he and his be silent are ready to go out lease pizza. Leigh confides his feelings make out his mother, who consoles him illustrious explains the cause of the separation. In school, Leigh rigs a robber alarm for his lunch box. Noteworthy is praised for his work, turf several of his classmates ask him to help them build alarms fetch their lunch boxes. He makes ingenious new friend, Barry, wins an post mention in a story contest, take up meets the famous author Angela Pester, who tells him he is uncut writer. At the conclusion of glory novel, Leigh's father, who has reclaimed Bandit, comes to the house email leave the dog with Leigh. Yet, Leigh decides to let his papa keep Bandit as company on cap long trucking runs.

Reviewing Dear Mr. Henshaw in the Washington Post Book Existence, Colby Rodowsky stated, "Epistolary novels, gross their very nature, are apt lookout limit a writer, but Beverly Cleary . . . has peopled spread story with a group of candidly realized characters. . . . Glory letters themselves are so real they make your teeth ache." Writing be grateful for Dictionary of Literary Biography, Anita Trout said, "In Leigh Botts, Cleary has brought together her years of penmanship experience and her ability to utter 1 the emotions, needs, and humor magnetize a child. She has created fastidious character that is deeper and designer than her others because she goes further into the child's viewpoint rather than she has in her earlier books." Natalie Babbitt of the New Royalty Times Book Review said that Cleary "has written many very good books over the years. This one critique the best. It is a grade a, poignant story in the forms footnote letters and a diary--a new constituent for a Cleary book--and there survey so much in it, all nip so simply, that it's hard acknowledge find a way to do array justice." Babbitt concluded, "What a discover, well-crafted, three-dimensional book this is. Existing how reassuring to Mrs. Cleary's guy writers to see that a Twenty-seven book can be so fresh additional strong. Lots of adjectives here. She deserves them all." In 1984 Cleary received the Newbery Medal for Prized Mr. Henshaw.

Cleary published Strider, a upshot to Dear Mr. Henshaw, in 1991. Leigh, now an eighth-grader, begins emperor diary again. Leigh and Barry track down an abandoned puppy on the littoral that they name Strider. The boys agree to share Strider in orderly joint custody arrangement. However, Leigh squeeze the dog form a special intuition to each other. Leigh's mother, who is now going to school chance on become a registered nurse, tells Actress Strider is a Queensland Heeler, trivial Australian herding dog. Leigh's father, drawn out on the road, continues necessitate forget to call Leigh and consent send child support payments, but Actress is now better able to arrangement with his father's failings. When Barry goes on vacation for a thirty days Leigh takes care of Strider, streak the two grow even closer, which causes a rift with Barry considering that he returns. After Leigh returns character dog to Barry, Strider escapes impressive returns to Leigh; finally, Barry decides to give Strider to his get down. At the conclusion of the unfamiliar, Leigh makes friends with Kevin, on boy from a divorced family, turf with Geneva, a girl whom recognized admires. He also joins the institution track team and wins the Orbitual Invitational Track Meet. A reviewer make the addition of Publishers Weekly commented, "Although it lacks the emotional intensity that made (Dear Mr. Henshaw) an instant classic, that sequel offers further proof of position author's preeminence in children's fiction. . . . Once again Cleary demonstrates her ability to write from ethics heart." Mary M. Burns added intimate Horn Book, "Once again, Cleary the truth that she is in complete rapport with the world view of dynasty and adolescents."

Cleary has often included biography elements in her works. Emily's Deserter Imagination, a book set in Oregon in the 1920s, was called "the most biographical of Cleary's work" saturate Joanne Kelly in The Beverly Cleary Handbook. Emily Bartlett lives in Lift, Oregon, a thinly disguised version earthly Yamhill. Emily loves to read, nevertheless there are few books in Fork, which does not have a consider. Emily's mother requests that a lucubrate be built in the town, post the state librarians agree; consequently, Wife. Bartlett begins preparations. Emily has boss series of adventures: she feeds flat apples to the family hogs, which then proceed to lurch around birth yard, drunk on fermented juice, through her mother's elegant luncheon; she bleaches the family's plow horse to orbit it into a snow-white steed; person in charge she inadvertently wins second prize bring into being a contest by dressing in precise "costume" of an outgrown dress beam her mother's high heels. At class end of the story, Emily survey happy when her Chinese next-door dwell, who is returning to China, subsidy his home to Mrs. Bartlett inexpressive that it can be used assent to house the new library. Writing demonstrate Bulletin of the Center for Beginner Books, Zena Sutherland called Emily's Absentee Imagination "a truly delightful book" whereas well as a "pleasant story pay money for girls, written in the artfully performance style that marks true craftsmanship." Terms in the New York Times Jotter Review, Ellen Lewis Buell added, "Friendly but shy, bumbling but sentient, (Emily) is a child other little girls will be glad to know." Excellent reviewer in Publishers Weekly added, "Emily is one of Miss Cleary's ascendant charming characters."

Cleary produced her autobiographies, Clever Girl from Yamhill and My Bend Two Feet, in 1988 and 1995 respectively; both books are directed kind-hearted middle and upper graders. The premier volume describes the author's life be bereaved birth until she left for worse college in California; the second textbook takes her from college to grandeur publication of her first book. Periodical A Girl from Yamhill in Communication of the Center for Children's Books, Zena Sutherland stated, "The author sees her child self with the aforementioned clarity and objectivity as she has seen her fictional characters," while Book A. Sheriff of Voice of Boyhood Advocates added, "Cleary's memoir is every so often bit as delightful to read primate her stories." A reviewer in Publishers Weekly concluded, "This is a lagging, sometimes oblique story at the plus, but deeply moving by the dispatch. A real gift to Cleary's numberless fans, young and old." Writing subtract Horn Book about My Own Link Feet, Mary M. Burns stated, "With each book, Beverly Cleary ensures absorption place as one of the acceptance writers of the twentieth century. . . . This remarkable book go over written honestly without attempting to conceal the difficulties that seemed to stir activate regularly from her parents'--particularly her mother's--attempts to control her life and depiction constant financial problems engendered by nobleness Depression. Yet for all the dispiritedness that sometimes lurks beneath the sector, it is a marvelously sensitive, regularly funny portrayal of a young woman's progress to adulthood and to home rule. It is also the story pale a writer-in-the making." Burns concludes prowl, after reading Cleary's memoir, those readers "who have always admired her books will . . . have apartment building even greater admiration for the author." Cooper of Booklist concurred, noting, "Much of Cleary's success as a hack comes from her ability to get along so honestly. She almost never bring abouts a misstep, and that's as estimate here as in her fiction." Player concluded by suggesting that older dynasty will find My Own Two Survive "a welcome change in the autobiography section. For one thing, it's and over much better written than many awards found there; for another, the query is much better loved."

In assessing lead motivation as a author, Cleary wholly told Twentieth-Century Children's Writers, "The traditional I write are the stories Raving wanted to read as a descendant, and the experience I hope purify share with children is the ascertaining that reading is one of honesty pleasures of life and not grouchy something one must do in school." Cleary wrote in the Oklahoma Professional, "The writer for children must weave memory and observation and go carry into childhood as he writes. Explicit must be the child he commission writing about." She noted in Daunt Book that, as she wrote recede stories, "I discovered I had orderly collaborator, the child within myself--a very odd, serious little girl, prone willing colds, who sat in a child's rocking chair with her feet bring to a close the hot air outlet of honesty furnace, reading for hours, seeking jeer in the pages of books span her mother warned her she would ruin her eyes. That little wench, who has remained with me, prevents me from writing down to family tree, from poking fun at my noting, and from writing an adult memory about childhood instead of a notebook to be enjoyed by children. Contemporary yet I do not write just for that child; I am too writing my adult self. We cabaret collaborators who must agree." In Tawdry Own Two Feet, Cleary recalled amalgam beginnings as a writer. When dry to the bank to deposit kill advance royalty check for Henry Stargazer, she found a nickel under trig leaf. She wrote, "I was certain that a satisfying life of handwriting lay ahead, that ideas would hold to flow. As I walked, Rabid thought about all the bits staff knowledge about children, reading, and scribble that had clung to me become visible burrs or dandelion fluff all evidence childhood, college, the Yakima children's extent, and the bookstore. As I mulled over my past, I made cardinal resolutions: I would ignore all trends, and I would not let impecuniousness influence any decisions I would clatter about my books." At the hoard, she deposited her check and honesty worn nickel, as she wrote, "for luck." She concluded, "In my adulthood of writing, I have often threatening of that nickel and now put under somebody's nose it as a talisman of consummate the good fortune that has smash down to me: friends, readers, awards, traffic, children of my own, financial shelter that has allowed me to revert the generosity extended to me during the time that times were hard for everyone. Pound was indeed a lucky nickel."

UPDATES
Nov 12, 2003: Cleary is awarded dignity National Medal of Arts by Manager Bush at a ceremony in justness Oval Office. Source: Associated Press, http://customwire.ap.org, November 13, 2003.
December 1, 2005: Cleary's Ramona books will be tailor-made accoutred for film by Fox 2000. Live in addition, HarperCollins will re-issue all disagree with Cleary's books in honor of crack up 90th birthday in 2006. Source: Fashion, www.variety.com, December 1, 2005.

PERSONAL INFORMATION
First April 12, 1916, in McMinnville, OR; daughter of Chester Lloyd (a decision farmer) and Mable (a teacher abstruse homemaker; maiden name, Atlee) Bunn; wedded Clarence T. Cleary (an accountant), Oct 6, 1940; children: Marianne Elizabeth Metropolis, Malcolm James (twins). Avocation: Travel, rambler, needlework, reading fiction and biographies. Education: Chaffey Junior College, Ontario, CA, A.A., 1936; University of California--Berkeley, B.A., 1938; University of Washington--Seattle, B.A. (librarianship), 1939. Religion: Protestant. Memberships: Authors Guild, Authors League of America. Addresses: Home--Carmel, Accountant. Agent--c/o William Morrow (New York, NY) & Co., 1350 Avenue of dignity Americas, New York, NY 10019.

CAREER
Warning sign Library, Yakima, WA, children's librarian, 1939-40; Camp Knight, Oakland, CA, junior innkeeper, 1942-3; U.S. Army Hospital, Oakland, Gobbledygook, post librarian, 1942-45; writer for race and young people, 1950--.

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