Beverly Cleary obituary

Children’s writer who drew on her experience of growing up in Portland, Oregon, for her Ramona books

The children’s writer Beverly Cleary, who has died aged 104, was best known for her series of books about Ramona and her family, and other stories set in the Grant Park neighbourhood of Portland, Oregon. While the realistic settings of the area she grew up in appealed most directly to US readers, her sure touch in representing familiar home and school situations in a lightly humorous way through her attractive, vivid characters ensured her popularity and critical acclaim around the world.

Cleary’s standout character, Ramona Quimby, first appeared as the annoying younger sister of Beezus (Beatrice), the best friend of the eponymous Henry in Cleary’s earliest titles, Henry Huggins (1950), Henry and Beezus (1952) and Henry and Ribsy (1954). Henry and his dog were the stars of these books and several others that followed.

Beverly Cleary in the mid-1950s, around the time she established the Quimby family as the centre of her books. Photograph: Alamy

Drawing on her experience as a children’s librarian, Cleary had the gift of appealing directly to young readers beginning to choose books for themselves. When readers sent letters curious to know more about the other characters in the stories, Cleary, encouraged by an editor who wanted stories about a child in kindergarten, wrote Beezus and Ramona (1955), in which she established the Quimby family.

Ramona the Pest (1968), the first solo story about her, followed some time later. From the first Ramona is both spirited and reflective. She is driven by an ambition to grow up quickly so as to catch up with Beezus. Starting school will help, she is sure, but she soon discovers that being in kindergarten does nothing to reduce the gap between the two of them.

Throughout the Ramona titles, including Ramona the Brave (1975), Ramona Quimby, Age 8 (1981) and Ramona Forever (1984), the home life of the Quimbys, the school life of the girls and the wider concerns of the community they live in are all readily recognisable through the characters and in the small-scale adventures that concern them. There are difficulties to overcome and petty annoyances to get through, reflecting how many family lives are largely devoid of any big social or moral messaging. Over the years, Ramona does gradually begin to feel a little less left behind and, despite always wanting to be older, is very aware that adults have difficulties, too.

Cleary’s biggest success came with these stories for readers aged seven to 11, which were inspired by her own experience as a struggling reader in her early days at school in Portland. Years later, after she had created what she had been looking for, she wrote: “The discovery, when I was about eight years old, that I could actually read, and read with pleasure, was one of the most exciting moments of my life. From that moment on, as I read through the shelves of the library, I searched for, but was unable to find, the books I wanted to read most of all: books about the sort of children who lived in my neighbourhood, books that would make me laugh.”

Beverly Cleary discussing the books she wrote for children who wanted to read about characters from the world they knew

However, she also wrote for other ages and genres, including four picture books featuring twins including The Real Hole (1962), which drew on her own experiences of her twin children, three fantasy books in which Ralph S Mouse interacts with humans, including The Mouse and the Motorcycle (1965) and Runaway Mouse (1970), and a handful of novels for teenagers. These were highly regarded when published – Fifteen (1956) was selected in 1962 as one of the four launch titles of Peacock Books, Penguin Books’ original list for teenagers in the UK, and Dear Mr Henshaw (1983) won the Newbery medal. However, they have lasted less well, since stories of early romance from the 1950s and teenage introspection from the 1980s respectively have dated too much over the years.

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Born in McMinnville, Oregon, Beverly was the only child of Mable (nee Atlee), a schoolteacher, and Chester Bunn, a farmer. She grew up on the family farm in Yamhill, Oregon, until she was six, when her father took a job as a bank security guard and the family moved to the state’s largest city, Portland. Graduating from Grant high school in 1934, Cleary took a degree in English at the University of California, Berkeley (1938) before going on to fulfil her ambition to be a librarian by getting a BA in librarianship from the University of Washington, Seattle (1939).

On graduation she worked as a children’s librarian in Yakima public library, Washington, followed by a librarian post at the United States army hospital, Oakland, California. In 1940 she married Clarence Cleary, the couple eloping as her parents disapproved of the relationship because he was a Roman Catholic. Her twins, a boy and a girl, were born in 1955.

Cleary received the Laura Ingalls Wilder award (1975) and the National Medal of Arts (2003), and was made a Library of Congress Living Legend (2000). Statues of her characters can be found in a garden for children in Grant Park, Oregon, and her old school is now Beverly Cleary school.

Clarence died in 2004. Cleary is survived by her children, Malcolm and Marianne, three grandchildren and a great-grandchild.

Beverly Atlee Cleary, writer, born 12 April 1916; died 25 March 2021

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