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1. black
2. grey
3. blue
4. red
5. brown
6. white

As a child, I disliked books in which children learned to be ‘better’ children.

Beverly Cleary

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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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  The humiliation that Jane had felt turned to something else–grief perhaps, or regret. Regret that she had not known how to act with a boy, regret that she had not been wiser.

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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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  The key to writing successful YA is to keep the adults out of the story as much as possible.

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  I have lovely memories of Los Angeles in the 1930s. I came down to live with my mother’s cousin and they invited me to come and go to junior college for a year.

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  I wanted to be a ballerina. I changed my mind.

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  We didn’t have television in those days, and many people didn’t even have radios. My mother would read aloud to my father and me in the evening.

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