A Tribute to Beverly Cleary

 

Beverly Cleary died in March, just short of her 105^th birthday. She was a classic children’s author who made it her mission to write about ordinary children with ordinary lives—and make everyone want to read those stories. That’s a real talent.

A professional children’s librarian, Beverly’s fiction was shaped by comments she heard from reluctant patrons. The boys, who were brought in by their teacher during school hours, weren’t interested in what the library had to offer. Instead, they asked where the books were “for kids like us.”  So when Beverly wrote her first book, Henry Huggins, she remembered incidents that had happened to boys she knew and changed them to fit the book.

Beverly’s second book was Ellen Tebbits. Today it is one of her lesser-known works, but not to me. Ellen Tebbits was one of the first books I owned as a child, purchasing it through the Scholastic Book Club at school. I loved it then, and I love it now.

Ellen Tebbits is a good example of how well Beverly fulfilled her mission. Ellen and I shared a similar experience, although mine occurred several years after I first read the book. In the first chapter, Ellen is desperate to keep her friends from finding out that her mother makes her wear woolen underwear. When I was in junior high, somebody noticed there were three straps under my blouse. The bra and slip straps were okay (many girls wore slips back then), but the third strap was an undershirt and the girls in my class laughed over it.

I just finished reading Beverly Cleary’s two memoirs, A Girl from Yamhill (through high school) and On My Own Two Feet (from college through marriage and the publication of her first book). Like with her fiction, she takes what was a relatively ordinary life and makes it interesting.

One amusing fact is her attitude towards reading at home. Her mother frequently read aloud to her, but Beverly refused to read to herself outside school. Because of a sub-par first-grade teacher and days missed due to illness, she could barely read when she started second grade. Her second-grade teacher quickly changed that, but Beverly still didn’t read at home.

Thanks to Miss Marius, I could read, but I refused to read outside of school.

“Everyone in our family has always loved to read,” said my puzzled mother. “I can’t understand why you won’t.”

Neither could I, but I felt reading should be confined to school and only when required.

Fortunately, she got bored one rainy Sunday afternoon during third grade, so she picked up a book and was hooked.

But I’m going to concentrate on several of the lessons that I and other writers can learn from her experience.

First was her determination to always try. In fourth grade, a store across from her school announced an essay contest, and many of her classmates said they were going to enter. I’m guessing Beverly’s essay was good, but that wasn’t the reason she won. Nobody else had even tried.

Similarly, she entered a Camp Fire Girls contest for a bulletin cover, and she “produced a cover of sorts. Once again I won a prize, not because my cover had any artistic merit, but because no one else entered the contest.”

As Beverly wrote after telling about the essay contest, “This incident was one of the most valuable lessons in writing I ever learned. Try! Others will talk about writing but may never get around to trying.”

During the writing process, Beverly tried to follow her mother’s advice to make it funny and keep it simple. And after her first book was published, she resolved to ignore all trends and not be influenced by money.

Anyone who is interested in writing for children, or simply wants to learn about children’s authors, should read A Girl from Yamhill and On My Own Two Feet. The last chapter of On My Own Two Feet, which talks about the process she used when writing Henry Huggins, is especially helpful for aspiring children’s authors.

So get out and read before you write.