Beverly Cleary Author Study: Henry and the Clubhouse

Illustrations by Louis Darling, though my copy

has a revised cover by JoAnn Scribner.

Henry finally got his paper route in the last book, but now he feels the pressure of selling subscriptions. He's waiting for someone to move into the empty house in his neighborhood so he'll have a new customer. In the meantime, he and his friends build their own clubhouse.

Ramona is very prevalent in this book, and she's quite the character. (She won't have her first solo book for six more years.) Henry is growing up though, so his interactions with Ramona are more brotherly than kids bugging each other, as it was in the earlier books. The ending of this book has a very touching scene between the two of them.

Library on Wheels by Sharlee Glenn

After reading about Emily getting a library for her town, I wanted to keep that library love going with Mary Lemist Titcomb, who created America’s first bookmobile. 

Not much is known about her early life, but Sharlee Glenn did amazing research on her work and the times to compile an inspirational book. The images of the bookmobile’s progression over the years were especially interesting to me. I've never actually been inside a bookmobile, but had dreams of starting one a few years ago. It's a lot to manage so I really loved seeing how Titcomb did it so long ago.