News and Notes
Beverly Cleary, creator of child fiction favorites Ribsy, The Mouse and the Motorcycle, and Ramona Quimby turns 100 today!
As a girl, Cleary was a late reader because she didn’t find most children’s books very interesting. In her first-grade class, she was assigned to the lowest reading group, the Backbirds, and her teacher, Miss Falb, beat her on the palms for daydreaming.
So Cleary tried to drop out of school in the first grade. But her parents forced her to keep going, and Cleary eventually excelled in school and in college and found a job as a librarian in Yakima, Wash. A boy there complained that there weren’t any books about kids like him.
Read the full article “Happy Birthday, Beverly Cleary” from The New York Times.
Other articles:
The Washington Post – Beverly Cleary on turning 100: kids today don’t have the freedom I had.
Browse the catalog for Beverly Cleary where you can also find e-books, audiobooks, and movies.
Photo source www.beverlycleary.com
Cleary’s memoirs previously reviewed on Memphis Reads (links to blogspot archive):
A Girl from Yamhill (1988)
My Own Two Feet (1995)
What are your favorite Beverly Cleary’s books? What are your fondest memoires from them?