Beverly Cleary dies at age 104

[Ilovemaisie]

Beverly Cleary - author of the Ramona books - has died just weeks away from being 105. I am so sad.
Ramona is probably one of my favourite literary characters ever created. Any one else here Beverly Cleary fans?

I remember the books from when I was younger. They were wonderful.

104 is grand old age, though, and she was lucky enough to be creatively successful. An enviable life!

I'm sad to hear she has died too, I loved the Ramona books.

ahhh this makes me sad. I’m a big fan. Grew up on all of her books. Ramona has always been my favourite character!

What a wonderful age to live to. I loved Ramona, although only ever had one of the books. I didnt even realise there were more until recently!

I was abit old for Ramona, so never got into that series as a child, but her YA book 'Fifteen' was my top, top book as a teenager. It was my absolute comfort read for about three years - loved it!
RIP and tgank you, Beverley Cleary.

Oh no
I will order some of her books for my children. I loved them so much when I was a child.

Strangely enough I never read any Ramona books but I did love her The Mouse and the Motorcycle and Emily's Runaway Imagination. I just read about her still being alive a few days ago, it now seems especially sad to hear of her death.

I was sorry to hear this today. Ramona was a huge part of my literary childhood! I'm excited for my DDs to discover her one day too.

I haven't heard of this author but thanks op for bringing this up as i will now check out her books. 104 what an age!

I liked the Ramon books.

*Ramona

I loved Ramona books. 104 is a good age! Read an article to say she was surrounded by her family.

Ah I loved the Beezus and Ramona books when I was little. I remember when they had an impromptu party with fig biscuits, so funny, happy memories.
Also remember Fifteen as a teenager.

RIP Beverley Cleary 😢

As an expat living in the US since childhood, I read most of Beverly Cleary's books when I was in school. My class teachers even assigned several of them, including Mouse and the Motorcycle and Muggie Maggie, as part of the reading curriculum! Encouraged by my American teachers (who had never heard of Enid Blyton, Rosemary Sutcliff, etc) I collected and devoured the complete sets of the Ramona series and the Henry Huggins series. I enjoyed Ramona's antics, but I do think the books grew rather tiring and repetitive after a while. In hindsight, I would much rather have spent the time reading Malory Towers and other similar British children's books which have a more lively, engaging quality that American children's books sorely lack. This is not to say I didn't like Beverly Cleary's works overall, but I do think they are guilty of the type of prosaic American-ness that is described in this brilliant article on British vs American children's literature:
www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/01/why-the-british-tell-better-childrens-stories/422859/

It's a shame you feel that way Star. Beverly Cleary wrote her first book (Henry Huggins) because children - especially boys - came into the library where she was librarian asking "where are the books about kids like me". She wrote stories about ordinary children doing ordinary things. The early books from the 50s do seem a bit dated now. The amount of freedom the children had - 4 year Ramona being left to play alone in the sandpit while Beezus was in her art class or Henry having a paper round when he was about age 10. But the later ones from the 70s/80s/90s are pretty timeless.
Sorry you didn't like her books.

@Scarby9 You have summed up my feelings about "Fifteen".To me it was the perfect love story . Sorry about her passing although she was a great age.

I love Ramona!

I've never read Fifteen before but have bought it for my Kindle, looking forward to reading it so thank you!

I always wondered why Fifteen was the only teen book of hers published in the UK. She wrote 4 teen books. I have an American copy of one called The Luckiest Girl. The other two are Jean and Johnny and Sister of the Bride which I have never read. They are in print in the USA though so I might just order them.

@Ilovemaisie Out of curiosity, were Ramona (and other Beverly Cleary) books very popular among children growing up in the UK? Having lived in the US almost all my life, I know they were popular at my school with some kids like myself (though not overwhelmingly popular among the majority of kids who), but I don't know if they enjoyed the same level of popularity in the UK.

I did really like Ramona and other books by BC in primary school (US elementary school) and read all of them eagerly! What I meant in my previous post was that in hindsight, I realise I liked Enid Blyton, Rosemary Sutcliff, etc (which I read many years after Ramona) much more than Ramonathat's not to say Ramona is bad it's good, but not as good as the British books! I wish I had spent less time on finishing all of BC's books (maybe just read 3 or 4 instead of 20 of them!) and spent that precious childhood time instead on EB, RS, etc. ( I only read a couple of EB, RS books much later but loved them...hoping to one day have time to "be a child again" and finish those EB and RS series.)

While I agree that BC does a great job of capturing everyday things with humour and empathy, I do think that some everyday things are best left unwritten on the page, especially for Ramona's audience age (not trying to be prudish, but just saying that some things are best experienced directly from life). For example, when Ramona is 8 years old, BC writes about her seeing her father playfully slap her mother's bottom. That is not something Enid Blyton would include in a Malory Towers book -- which also has realistic portrayals of life, including timeless issues like jealousy, a girl unable to control her temper and physically hurting another, etc.

Star I was a child in the 80s and the Ramona books and Henry books were published by Puffin and very popular although I think more Ramona was more popular as the Henry books did feel more old fashioned. There were copies of the books in both my primary and secondary school and my local library had them. I remember when Ramona Forever came out (around 1985 ish) you could order copies through the Puffin Book Club at school and I remember me and most of my friends ordering our copies all excited. I am not sure how popular the Ralph S Mouse or Dear Mr Henshaw books were in comparison. They were also published by Puffin though - which I suppose was the main children's publishers of that era.
So they were definitely popular in my part of the UK.
Puffin stopped publishing them in the 90s and when the final book came out in 1999 it was a different publisher who also re issued the earlier Ramona books (but not Henry ones) but these editions were only around for a couple of years or so.
So I suppose the last 20 years or they haven't been as huge in the UK as they once were but this is most likely due to the fact you can't buy UK editions. I found some American editions in a charity shop so bought them and donated them to my daughters primary school library - there was a lot of excitement from quite a few of the mums similar age to me (40s) and a lot of "oh l loved Ramona so much".
So not considered 'classics' in the UK but definitely popular back in the 80s.

I was so sorry to hear this news, and it reminded me how much I loved her books as a child. Many of them are in our attic awaiting my own children to become old enough to read them. I can't say I think there's any comparison between Beverley Cleary and Enid Blyton, but each to their own!

I remember having to do a presentation on our favourite book for English at secondary school (late 90s). I did mine on Beezus and Ramona. No idea why as it wasn't actually my favourite book. I was the only one in my top set class who had heard of it. Although I did end up lending it to half the class as they all wanted to read it after my presentation. (Gosh. Remember the excitement of using the overhead projector?)
I'd also not realised BC wrote Muggie Maggie which was another top 10 childhood book for me.

I've had a very hazy memory of one of these books for years but couldn't remember the name of character/author.
Now I can google them! Thank you OP.
What a wonderful age to reach. I hope she had a good life.

I think Puffin Books was never the same after Penguin got rid of Kaye Webb as editor.

If the last Ramona book came out in 1985 it does ecplain why I wasn't really aware there were 8 of them until later. I have a mixture of copies and a two volume omnibus edition,. I would have been 15/16 in 1985 and read the earlier Ramona books between 7 and 9/10.

My copy of Fifteen was a secondhand Peacock edition - that was Penguin/Puffin's 60s and early 70s YA imprint - by the time I was a teenager they were publishing as Puffin Plus.