I don’t necessarily start with the beginning of the book. I just start with the part of the story that’s most vivid in my imagination and work forward and backward from there.
BEVERLY CLEARYQuite often somebody will say, What year do your books take place? and the only answer I can give is, In childhood.
More Beverly Cleary Quotes
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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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Writers are good at plucking out what they need here and there.
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I just wrote about childhood as I had known it.
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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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I think the best teachers had a real interest in the subject they were teaching and a love for children.
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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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Nothing in the whole world felt as good as being able to make something from a sudden idea.
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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.
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I enjoy writing for third and fourth graders most of all.
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If she can’t spell, why is she a librarian? Librarians should know how to spell.
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All knowledge is valuable to a librarian.
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I had a very wise mother. She always kept books that were my grade level in our house.
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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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As a child, I disliked books in which children learned to be ‘better’ children.
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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.
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