All is not as it appears on Klickitat Street. Yes, the lawns are mowed, the houses are tidy, the rhododendrons bloom in lovely profusion. It is a pretty street in Portland, Ore., a nice place to raise a family.
But in the basement of one of those tidy homes, a little girl is doing something naughty. Something she shouldn’t. All alone, and tempted by a basket of beautiful red apples, she is systematically taking a single bite out of each one. The first bite, she reasons, tastes the best.
The Bobbsey Twins never would do this. Nor would the Five Little Peppers, or any of the other children of literature who call their moms “Mother” and always manage to keep their clothes clean.
These are not children you’d necessarily want to play with.
Ramona Quimby, on the other hand . . . .
She’s a mess. She’s creative. She’s occasionally a brat. She’s loving. She drives her older sister crazy. She sometimes makes a situation worse before she makes it better. She knows how things should be.
This, this is the friend to have.
In Ramona, children recognize themselves. And that’s why Beverly Cleary is brilliant.
Large body of work
Cleary, who celebrated her 90th birthday this spring, is one of America’s most beloved children’s authors. Since 1950, she has written 39 books — winning a Newbery Medal for “Dear Mr. Henshaw” — and sold 91 million copies worldwide. In the world of children’s literature, she is something of a rock star.
But book sales and 20th printings are not why she is beloved. She is beloved for writing children who are not perfect or smarter than adults or downright annoying, but who are marvelously, sloppily real.
“Real children doing interesting things” is how Anne Phillips describes Cleary’s books, and she ought to know: She’s president of the Children’s Literature Association and an associate professor of English at Kansas State University, specializing in American children’s literature.
“There’s humor, and there’s wisdom, and there are just really appealing characters.”
Cleary was not the first to write children who aren’t perfect, Phillips said. Louisa May Alcott created complex March sisters in “Little Women” and Mark Twain captured the essence of American boys in “Tom Sawyer” and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”
But by 1950, when Cleary published her first book, “Henry Huggins,” children’s literature had become sort of . . . idealized. And maybe a little boring.
“A lot of books [at that time] were very didactic,” said Cilla Jacobson, head of the children’s department at the Palm Beach County main library. “They were telling children, `this is the way life should be, this is what you should aspire to.’ With Beverly Cleary, children just saw themselves.”
In fact, the second paragraph of “Henry Huggins” is this: “I wish something exciting would happen, Henry often thought.”
What child hasn’t thought the same thing, especially when the long hours of summer stretch into boredom?
“These are books about regular life,” said Nancy Coriaty, manager of children’s services at the West Palm Beach Public Library.
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Phillips said she often teaches “Ramona the Pest” in her children’s literature classes, and is particularly enamored of a scene from Ramona’s first day of kindergarten. Ramona’s teacher, Miss Binney, is reading “Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel” and Ramona raises her hand to ask, “Miss Binney, I want to know — how did Mike Mulligan go to the bathroom when he was digging the basement of the town hall?”
“So you have this wonderful literary criticism in the middle of kindergarten class,” Phillips explained. “The teacher says it doesn’t matter, but the first thing she did was show the children the bathroom. This is a question real children would have.” Cleary is perhaps best known for creating Ramona Quimby, who readers meet as a prekindergartener living on Klickitat Street and see through 3rd grade. She drives her older sister, Beezus, crazy. She has a vivid imagination. She tried to get her dad to stop smoking by making a sign that says, “NOSMOKING,” because she ran out of room on her paper.
Real issues
Her problems are real, and the solutions aren’t easy.
“She was messy and her socks didn’t match and it made kids feel that, you know, it’s OK,” Jacobson said.
Phillips said Ramona laid the foundation for other real children of literature: Junie B. Jones and Judy Moody and Anastasia Krupnik, Artemis Fowl and Homer Price and Peter Hatcher.
Today’s readers, Jacobson said, generally are steered to Cleary’s book by a parent or teacher or librarian. But once they are, “they see that these are wonderful stories,” Jacobson said. “For example, the Ralph S. Mouse books appeal to boys and girls because they’re just good adventure stories.”
And regardless of when the books were written, Phillips said, there are certain experiences of childhood — certain fears and joys and challenges — that transcend time. Cleary’s gift, she said, has been tapping into the complexities of children’s friendships, and their heartbreaks, and their heroes, in a way that’s honest and real.
Which is why it’s so easy to relate to a little girl sitting in her basement, taking a single bite from every apple in the basket.
Because, well, who hasn’t wanted to do that?