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I just wrote about childhood as I had known it.

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
I had a very wise mother. She always kept books that were my grade level in our house.
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Book Mother Wise
As a child, I disliked books in which children learned to be ‘better’ children.
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Book Child Children
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
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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Boys Grief Humilation Perhaps Regret Turned
I think the best teachers had a real interest in the subject they were teaching and a love for children.
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Children Real Teacher
People are usually surprised to hear this, but I don’t really read children’s books.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Books Children People
Problem solving, and I don’t mean algebra, seems to be my life’s work. Maybe it’s everyone’s life’s work.
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Algebra Mean Problem
Don’t stop now. Go ahead! Be readers all of your lives. And don’t forget, librarians and teachers can help you find the right books to read.
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Book Helping Teacher
If 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.
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Book Reading Teacher
I wanted to be a ballerina. I changed my mind.
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Ballerina Changed Mind
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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Book Library Seventh
She was not a slowpoke grownup. She was a girl who could not wait. Life was so interesting she had to find out what happened next.
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Girl Interesting Waiting
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.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Children Inspiring Mother
I was a very observant child. The boys in my books are based on boys in my neighborhood growing up.
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Book Children Grow Up
Writers are good at plucking out what they need here and there.
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Bedtime Needs Writers
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 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 CLEARY

Book Imagination Stories
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.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Patience Reading Teacher
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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Book Chance Reading
All knowledge is valuable to a librarian.
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Knowledge Librarian Valuable
I was a great reader of fairy tales. I tried to read the entire fairy tale section of the library.
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Fairy Tales Great Library
In my grammar school years back in the 1920s I used my ten-cents-a-week allowance for Saturday matinees of Douglas Fairbanks movies. All that swashbuckling and leaping about in the midst of the sails of ships!
BEVERLY CLEARY

School Ships Years
I hope children will be happy with the books I’ve written, and go on to be readers all of their lives.
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Children Happy Hope Readers
Children should learn that reading is pleasure, not just something that teachers make you do in school.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Children Reading Teacher
Children want to do what grownups do.
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Children Want Grownups
Nothing in the whole world felt as good as being able to make something from a sudden idea.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Able Ideas World

I just wrote about childhood as I had known it.

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I just wrote about childhood as I had known it.

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