I hope children will be happy with the books I’ve written, and go on to be readers all of their lives.
BEVERLY CLEARYIf we finished our work, the teacher would say, ‘Now don’t read ahead.’ But sometimes I hid the book I was reading behind my geography book and did read ahead. You can hide a lot behind a geography book.
More Beverly Cleary Quotes
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Children want to do what grownups do.
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With twins, reading aloud to them was the only chance I could get to sit down. I read them picture books until they were reading on their own.
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When I was in the first grade I was afraid of the teacher and had a miserable time in the reading circle, a difficulty that was overcome by the loving patience of my second grade teacher. Even though I could read, I refused to do so.
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People are usually surprised to hear this, but I don’t really read children’s books.
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I just wrote about childhood as I had known it.
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I was a very observant child. The boys in my books are based on boys in my neighborhood growing up.
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Quite often somebody will say, What year do your books take place? and the only answer I can give is, In childhood.
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I had a bad time in school in the first grade. Because I had been a rather lonely child on a farm, but I was free and wild and to be shut up in a classroom – there were 40 children on those days in the classroom, and it was quite a shock.
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Writers are good at plucking out what they need here and there.
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Ramona stepped back into her closet, slid the door shut, pressed an imaginary button, and when her imaginary elevator had made its imaginary descent, stepped out onto the real first floor and raced a real problem. Her mother and father were leaving for Parents’ Night.
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Otis was inspired by a boy who sat across the aisle from me in sixth grade. He was a lively person. My best friend appears in assorted books in various disguises.
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If she can’t spell, why is she a librarian? Librarians should know how to spell.
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Nothing in the whole world felt as good as being able to make something from a sudden idea.
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I was a great reader of fairy tales. I tried to read the entire fairy tale section of the library.
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I am not a pest,” Ramona Quimby told her big sister Beezus.
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