Beverly Cleary Author Study: Ramona Forever

Illustrations by Alan Tiegreen, though my copy 

has a revised cover by JoAnn Scribner.

This book encompasses everything you could want from a chapter book! Ramona fights with her sister, gets a bit of after-school freedom, has to bury her cat, learns her mom is pregnant, and plays a part in her aunt's wedding! So much excitement, and I never had that in my childhood so I loved living vicariously through Ramona.

I think this might be the Ramona book I read most as a kid; I remember so much about it, so vividly. I remember thinking recently while reading Ramona and Her Mother: doesn't Ramona's family have a baby? I just couldn't remember when! I do kind of remember watching some episodes on TV as well because my original book had a yellow cover with a photograph of a real girl on the front.

Just an aside: I had Beverly Cleary's books arranged on my shelf in publication order, and also have a list of titles and publication dates in a notebook I'm using for this project. The copyright page of my book says 1979! There's nothing wrong with reading them out of order, but I want to see the progression of the stories and her writing. Everything I can find online verifies the 1984 publication date, but I thought it was strange and worth noting.

Beverly Cleary Author Study: Dear Mr. Henshaw

 Illustrations by Paul O. Zelinsky. 

I read this as a kid and it’s always stuck out in my mind as the first book I read written in epistolary form, but it wasn’t until re-reading it as an adult that the gravity of the overall book really hit me. 

I had remembered Leigh as being a kid writing to an author, but I forgot how much you learn about him through the letters. It’s interesting to see what he thinks of his life and how he portrays that to Mr. Henshaw. I especially love that we never see Mr. Henshaw’s letters to Leigh, but can still fill in the blanks by what’s written.

This book is really deep, and I think it was ahead of its time. I think Cleary is touching on so many interesting aspects of family life and divorced parents, especially considering this was published in 1983.