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In seventh grade…I found a place on the [library]shelf where my book would be if I ever wrote a book, which I doubted.

Beverly Cleary

Today I discovered two kinds of people who go to high school: those who wear new clothes to show off on the first day, and those who wear their oldest clothes to show they think school is unimportant.
BEVERLY CLEARY

School Thinking Two
Quite often somebody will say, What year do your books take place? and the only answer I can give is, In childhood.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Book Giving Years
I was a very observant child. The boys in my books are based on boys in my neighborhood growing up.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Book Children Grow Up
I feel sometimes that in children’s books there are more and more grim problems, but I don’t know that I want to burden third- and fourth-graders with them.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Book Children Want
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.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Book Boys Friendship
My mother would read aloud to my father and me in the evening. She read mainly travel books.
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Book Father Mother
He was dressed as if everything he wore had come from different stores or from a rummage sale, except that the crease in his trousers was sharp and his shoes were shined.
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Different Rummage Sales Shoes
She means well, but she always manages to do the wrong thing. She has a real talent for it.
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Mean Real Talent
I read my books aloud before they were published.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Books Publisher Read
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.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Burton Father Imagination Mother Real Step
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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Cousin Memories Mother
I just wrote about childhood as I had known it.
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Childhood Known
The key to writing successful YA is to keep the adults out of the story as much as possible.
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Keys Successful Writing
If you don’t see the book you want on the shelves, write it.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Book Want Writing
I don’t think children’s inner feelings have changed. They still want a mother and father in the very same house; they want places to play.
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Children Inspiring Mother
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.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Boys Grief Humilation Perhaps Regret Turned

In seventh grade…I found a place on the [library]shelf where my book would be if I ever wrote a book, which I doubted.

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In seventh grade…I found a place on the [library]shelf where my book would be if I ever wrote a book, which I doubted.

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Popular Authors

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