![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Cleary helped to shape the coming of age of so many for decades, and for that, we owe her a debt of gratitude – and a permanent place on our bookshelves.Ĭleary’s timeless protagonist, Ramona, was a girl who felt so intimately familiar that there were times when I could no longer separate the character in the well-worn pages of the library book from the real-live me. ![]() The follies and triumphs of that “pest” of a girl Ramona are woven into the fabric of our own senses of self and place in the world. That was the summer I met Ramona Quimby, the heroine of “Beezus and Ramona,” “Ramona the Pest,” “Ramona the Brave” and others in a series of novels that author Beverly Cleary, who passed away Thursday, created for a character spun out of her earlier “Henry Huggins” books.Ĭleary’s was a long and rich life, but it is also true that a part of Cleary will live forever – because her words endure in the millions of girls-turned-adults who carry her brilliant words with us. I read and read and it was my form of travel, a portal into what life might offer beyond my little world. Relief came in the form of the summer reading program at the local library, where the air-conditioning slapped my sun-stroked face and books lifted me to other dimensions. The summer after third grade, long, hot, school-free days loomed ahead – I had no camp or planned activities. ![]()
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