Sometimes I have to go back and figure out how a character got to a particular point. “I usually start with a couple of ideas, not necessarily at the beginning of the book, and I just write. Cleary Wrote Her Books “Very Messily.”Ĭleary approached writing in an intuitive way. In 1995, she said that, as a child, “I was very much like Ramona when I lived on the farm and was wild and free.” When she got older and moved to Portland, a bad teacher “turned me into Ellen Tebbits, a rather anxious little girl." In another interview, she added, "But I had Ramona-like thoughts!" 4. And she had opened the butter and was eating it."Ĭleary may have thrown a bit of herself into Ramona as well. "In those days, it was all in one piece, not in cubes. "She had been sent to the neighborhood store for a pound of butter," Cleary said. One day, Cleary saw a neighbor girl walking home from the store. Ramona was inspired by a childhood memory. They sold well and Ramona soon became Cleary’s most popular character. In 1968, Cleary wrote Ramona the Pest and went on to write six more Ramona books during the 1970s and 1980s. In 1955, she wrote Beezus and Ramona, the only book in the series from Beezus’s point of view.
Originally, Ramona was “just a little brat in Henry Huggins,” intended for one brief scene, but Cleary found she kept having new ideas for the character.
Ramona Surprised Cleary By Sticking Around Ramona couldn’t pronounce her real name, Beatrice, so now everyone called her Beezus.Īs for the little sister’s name, Cleary overheard a neighbor outside calling to someone named Ramona and promptly put the name in the book. When she went to add a female friend for Henry, she included a little sister to explain Beezus’s nickname. Cleary tossed Ramona into the book because she realized none of her characters had siblings. Ramona Was An Accidental Characterīeezus and Ramona appeared as minor characters in Cleary’s first novel, Henry Huggins (1950).
While her older sister Beezus calls her a “pest,” Ramona’s imaginative and lively nature is why readers still love her all these years later. Ramona Quimby-the protagonist of Beverly Cleary’s popular series of children's novels-has a knack for getting into trouble, whether it’s dropping out of kindergarten, squeezing a tube of toothpaste down a sink, or cracking a hard-boiled egg on her head to show off (only to find her mom forgot to boil it).
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