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This commentary celebrating Beverly Cleary aired on Vermont Public Radio in 1993, when I was teaching at Brattleboro Union High School and my younger daughter was six years old. Now, Beverly Cleary is 104 years old, and her books are timeless: my daughter is a teacher and reads those books to her own daughter.
When I was in elementary school in the 1950s, I read and re-read Beverly Clearyâs books for children. A solitary child living in the country, I loved her characters on Klickitat Street: Henry Huggins and his mongrel dog Ribsy, his neighbor Beatrice Quimby, whom everyone called Beezus, and especially Beezusâs little sister, Ramona â Ramona who rode her tricycle at full speed right into the coffee table holding Beezusâs and Henryâs checker game, Ramona who got bubblegum in her hair and had to take the scissors to it.