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I was an only child; I didn’t have a sister, or sisters.

Beverly Cleary

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.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Father Mother People
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
Children want to do what grownups do.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Children Want Grownups
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
As a child, I disliked books in which children learned to be ‘better’ children.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Book Child Children
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.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Book Helping Teacher
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
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
I think the best teachers had a real interest in the subject they were teaching and a love for children.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Children Real Teacher
The key to writing successful YA is to keep the adults out of the story as much as possible.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Keys Successful Writing
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.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Book Reading Teacher
I enjoy writing for third and fourth graders most of all.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Enjoy Thirds Writing
I wanted to be a ballerina. I changed my mind.
BEVERLY CLEARY

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.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Book Library Seventh
I was a great reader of fairy tales. I tried to read the entire fairy tale section of the library.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Fairy Tales Great Library
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 was an only child; I didn’t have a sister, or sisters.

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I was an only child; I didn’t have a sister, or sisters.

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Popular Authors

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