Happy 100th, Beverly Cleary!

[leno...@yahoo.com]

She was nominated for the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1984.

Tributes galore, today!

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&authuser=0&q=beverly+cleary&oq=beverly+cleary&gs_l=news-cc.3..43j0l3j43i53.3308.8025.0.8652.14.8.0.6.6.0.198.1016.3j5.8.0...0.0...1ac.1.x35C1HLGU30
(includes tributes from the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Washington Post, and NPR)

From Jezebel (fascinating):

"Most People Love Ramona Quimby, But I Remember Beverly Cleary"
http://pictorial.jezebel.com/most-people-love-ramona-quimby-but-i-remember-beverly-1770292539

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&authuser=0&q=beverly+cleary&oq=beverly+cleary&gs_l=news-cc.3..43j0l3j43i53.3308.8025.0.8652.14.8.0.6.6.0.198.1016.3j5.8.0...0.0...1ac.1.x35C1HLGU30#hl=en&gl=us&authuser=0&q=beverly+cleary+100th
(more tributes - top one is from CNN)

Here's one at School Library Journal, with quite a few videos:

http://www.slj.com/2016/04/industry-news/beverly-cleary-turned-100-today/

By Rocco Staino.

First paragraph:

Today marks the 100th birthday of literary icon Beverly Cleary, the author of more than 40 books. Her classic characters, such as Henry Huggins, Beezus and Ramona Quimby, and Ralph S. Mouse have entertained generations of readers. Celebrations have been held around the country, including an interview (link) by Jenna Bush Hager on the Today Show...

(snip)

And from the Horn Book Magazine:

http://www.hbook.com/2016/04/blogs/out-of-the-box/todays-the-day-happy-100th-birthday-beverly-cleary/
(includes links to many articles - including "Beverly Cleary's letter to Louis Darling's widow, Lois, with a Horn Book connection.")

And, as it happens, had illustrator Louis Darling lived, he would be turning 100 on April 26th! Sadly, he died of cancer at age 53. He was well known for illustrating Cleary's books - and he also worked on Oliver Butterworth's "The Enormous Egg" and Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring." Cleary dedicated the book "Runaway Ralph" to him, which he also illustrated.



http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Rec/rec.arts.books.childrens/2006-04/msg00028.html
(my birthday post to Cleary in 2006)

Excerpts:

She lives in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, near the golfers' Pebble
Beach, Otis Redding's Monterey, and John Steinbeck's Salinas.

www.beverlycleary.com/

(there's a real Klickitat Street!)

From the New York Post: In all her books, Cleary says, she's always stuck to one rule: "I never reform anybody. Because when I was growing up, I didn't like to read about boys and girls who learned to be better boys and girls.")

http://imdb.com/name/nm0165823/
(filmography)

On November 12, 2003, Cleary was awarded the National Medal of Arts at
the White House.

From Encyclopedia of World Biography Supplement: ...she had very clear ideas about what she did not want to read: "Any book in which a child accepted the wisdom of an adult and reformed, any book in which a child reformed at all.... [and] any book in which education was disguised like a pill in a spoonful of jelly." In her Regina Medal acceptance speech, she spoke bitterly about a book that she thought was a "real" story, but which turned out to be a phonics lesson in the end. She said the author had "cheated" her. "He had used a story to try to teach me. I bitterly resented this intrusion into my life."

From the Horn Book: "When I wrote Dear Mr. Henshaw, I did not expect every reader to like Leigh as much as Ramona. Although I am deeply touched that my books have reached two generations of children, popularity has never been my goal. If it had been, I would have written Ramona Solves the Mystery of the Haunted House and Finds a Baby Brother or something like Henry and Beezus Play Doctor, instead of a book about the feelings of a lonely child of divorce."

(end of excerpts)

https://www.google.com/search?tbm=vid&hl=en&source=hp&biw=&bih=&q=beverly+cleary&oq=beverly+cleary&gs_l=video-hp.3..0l8j0i30j0i5i30.2768.4658.0.4930.14.10.0.4.4.0.181.915.8j2.10.0....0...1ac.1.34.video-hp..0.14.1018.0ExSAzgo_sU
(videos)



Lenona.

[leno...@yahoo.com]

Bits and pieces:

From Beverly Cleary's "Henry & the Clubhouse"(1962):

"Stay away from that house on the corner," (Beezus) advised. "When we said, 'Trick or treat' they said they would like to see us do a trick for them and why didn't we sing a little song. I guess they don't understand about Halloween."

(What Beezus didn't understand is that the people in that house actually knew Halloween better than she did - because "singing for your supper" DID in fact used to be a Halloween tradition. Not unlike Christmas caroling, though I'm not sure how often carolers expect to be rewarded with food or money by random households these days.)

In 2005, I said:

I was rereading "Ramona the Pest." It occurred to me that what distinguishes the "Ramona" books is that while Cleary obviously respects little kids' perspectives - and their intelligence - she still refuses to make the adults revolve around Ramona or any other child. (Which, unfortunately, probably dates the books a bit!) Ramona, ultimately, is expected to revolve around the wishes of adults, whether misunderstandings between them and her have been cleared up or not. This is even reflected in the book's title, when you think about it! I.e., the adults are not made to look foolish just to make Ramona look better, nor does Cleary allow Ramona to seethe with contempt for adults, unlike quite a few characters from Judy Blume's world.

While Cleary probably didn't manage to blend the old with the new so gracefully in all her books - she certainly didn't allow any adult female characters in "The Mouse & the Motorcycle" any dignity, even the mice - it's still a trait of hers that marks her as a great writer, I think. (She introduced an adult female character in the sequel to TMatM who was non-stereotypical, thankfully.)


Oh and check this out!

http://www.edrants.com/?p=2846

It's a pretty amusing parody of the first two pages of "Ramona the Pest."

(For those who don't know, one passage in the first pages of the real book is: "She was a girl who could not wait. Life was so interesting she had to find out what happened next.")

Excerpts:

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Thanks to the success of Judy Blume's revised edition of Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, in which all references to Margaret's pink sanitary belt have been eliminated, Beverly Cleary has also stepped into the revision game. Responding to recent concerns that "Pest" was too antiquated a term for the 21st century, Cleary's classic novel Ramona the Pest has been rewritten and updated for the present day. The title of the book has been changed to Ramona the Alternative. Return of the Reluctant has obtained the first chapter of Cleary's "special edition" and it follows below.]

"She was a girl who had been denied an iPod. Life was so boring that
she had to fall asleep in class."


Lenona.

[leno...@yahoo.com]

Oh, yes - forgot to say one thing: While Cleary's books manage to date pretty well, one thing that might date "Ramona the Brave" was when her parents make her follow the teacher's order to apologize in front of the class. Nowadays, at the least, I suspect the average parent would help her (after making the apology, maybe) to find a way to tell the teacher that Ramona had only crushed a COPY of her paper owl - plagiarized by another student.


Lenona.

[leno...@yahoo.com]

On the back cover of one edition of "Henry and the Clubhouse," interestingly, Ramona is referred to not as "Ramona the Pest" but as "Ramona the Brat"! It also implies that Beezus and Ramona are actually working together against Henry.

And:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2016/04/beverly_cleary_s_novels_about_teenage_girls_fifteen_the_luckiest_girl_jean.html
(about Cleary's novels for teen girls)


And, one thing that might surprise modern readers about the 1968 "Ramona the Pest" is how little attention or sympathy Ramona supposedly gets from the adults around her. Example: When she hides for hours in the playground because there's a substitute teacher in her kindergarten class, and her sister finally finds her and takes her to the female principal's office, the principal only offers a few words of comfort before taking her back. Here's the scene (pages 94-96):

https://books.google.com/books?id=S2Nk0iruNVgC&pg=PA94&lpg=PA94&dq=%22this+is+my+little+sister+ramona%22&source=bl&ots=_OSXlMXvMk&sig=Lb01PJUjizNhiKBCQO0xACPL8fk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj30cni5ozMAhWBrB4KHSnLDHIQ6AEIHzAB#v=onepage&q=%22this%20is%20my%20little%20sister%20ramona%22&f=false

But, again, this is simply another example of how Cleary allowed adults in her books to keep their dignity at all times instead of rewarding kids for bad behavior and immature attitudes, unlike in children's books of lower quality.

(Not that some of Mrs. Quimby's lapses in supervision of Ramona - in the Henry Huggins books - aren't somewhat contrived; she never seems to get punished even when she's already 4! Talking is hardly the way to get a kid to stop behaving badly.)


Lenona.