Beverly Cleary, the famous children’s author whose childhood memories in Oregon were shared with millions through Ramona and Beezus Quimby and Henry Huggins, has died. He was 104 years old.
Cleary editor HarperCollins announced Friday that the author died Thursday in northern California, where he has lived since the 1960s. No cause of death was reported.
Trained as a librarian, Cleary did not begin writing books until her early 30s, when she wrote “Henry Huggins,” published in 1950. Children around the world loved the adventures of Huggins and neighbors Ellen Tebbits, Otis Spofford. , Beatrice “Beezus” Quimby and her younger sister, Ramona. They live in a healthy environment at Klickitat Street, a veritable street in Portland, Oregon, the city where Cleary spent much of his youth.
Titles for “Henry” included “Henry and Ribsy,” “Henry and the Path of Paper,” and “Henry and Beezus.”
Ramona, perhaps his best-known character, debuted in “Henry Huggins” with just a brief mention.
“All the kids seemed to be only children, so I threw a little sister and she didn’t leave. She appeared in every book,” she said in a March 2016 phone interview from her California home. .
Cleary herself was unique and said the character was not a mirror.
“I was a well-educated girl, not that I wanted to be one,” she said. “At Ramona’s age, in those days, kids would play outside. We would play on the corset and jump on the rope and they loved it and she always had her knees scratched.”
In all, there were eight books about Ramona between “Beezus and Ramona” in 1955 and “The World of Ramona” in 1999. Others included “Ramona the Plague” and “Ramona and Her Father.” In 1981, “Ramona and Her Mother” won the National Book Award.
Cleary didn’t write recently because he said he felt “it’s important for writers to know when to quit.”
“I even got rid of my typewriter. It was beautiful, but I like typing. When I started typing I found that I was thinking more about my typing than what I was going to say, so I I wrote with a very long hand “he said in March 2016.
Although he left the pen, Cleary republished three of his most beloved books with three famous fans writing prologues for the new editions.
Actress Amy Poehler wrote the front section of “Ramona Quimby, 8 Years Old”; author Kate DiCamillo wrote the opening of “The Mouse and the Motorcycle;” and author Judy Blume wrote the prologue to “Henry Huggins.”
Cleary, a self-described “fuddy-duddy,” said there was a simple reason he started writing children’s books.
“As a librarian, kids always asked for books about‘ kids like us. ’Well, there were no books about kids like them. So when I sat down to write, I found myself writing about the kind of kids I had. “I grew up,” Cleary said in a 1993 interview with the Associated Press.
“Dear Mr. Henshaw,” the poignant story of a lone boy who corresponds with an author of children’s books, won the 1984 John Newbery Medal for the most outstanding contribution to American children’s literature. “It came about because two different guys from different parts of the country asked me to write a book about a boy with divorced parents,” he told National Public Radio as he approached his 90th birthday.
“Ramona and Her Father” in 1978 and “Ramona Quimby, 8 Years Old” in 1982 were named Newbery Honor Books.
Cleary ventured into fantasy with “The Mouse and the Motorcycle” and the sequels “Runaway Ralph” and “Ralph S. Mouse.” “Socks,” about a cat’s struggle for acceptance when its owners have a baby, is told from the same pet’s point of view.
The Library of Congress named her a living legend in 2000. In 2003 she was chosen as one of the winners of the National Medal of the Arts and met President George W. Bush. She is praised in literary circles everywhere.
Tim Sloan / AFP through Getty
He produced two volumes of autobiography for young readers, “A Girl from Yamhill,” about his childhood, and “My Own Two Feet,” which tells the story of his college and youth up to his time. first book.
“I seem to have grown up with an unusual memory. People are amazed at the things I remember. I think I just came from living isolated on a farm the first six years of my life where my main activity was observation,” he said. Cleary.
Cleary was born in Beverly Bunn, April 12, 1916, in McMinnville, Oregon, and lived on a Yamhill farm until his family moved to Portland when he was of school age. She was a slow reader, blaming the disease, and a first-grade teacher with an average spirit who disciplined her by making a pointer with a steel tip on the back of her hands.
“I had chickenpox, smallpox and tonsillitis in the first degree and no one seemed to think this had anything to do with my reading problems,” Cleary told the AP. “I just went crazy and rebellious.”
In sixth or seventh grade, “I decided I was going to write stories for kids,” he said.
Cleary graduated from junior college in Ontario, California, and the University of California at Berkeley, where she met her husband, Clarence. They married in 1940; Clarence Cleary died in 2004. They were parents of twins, a boy and a girl born in 1955 who inspired his book “Mitch and Amy”.
Cleary studied librarianship at the University of Washington and worked as a children’s librarian in Yakima, Washington, and post-librarian at Oakland Army Hospital during World War II.
His books have been translated into more than a dozen languages and have inspired Japanese, Danish and Swedish television programs based on the Henry Huggins series. A 10-part PBS series, “Ramona,” starred Canadian actress Sarah Polley. The 2010 film “Ramona and Beezus” featured actresses Joey King and Selena Gomez.
Cleary was once asked what his favorite character was.
“Does your mother have a favorite child?” she replied.