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I didn’t start out writing to give children hope, but I’m glad some of them found it.

Beverly Cleary

Problem solving, and I don’t mean algebra, seems to be my life’s work. Maybe it’s everyone’s life’s work.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Algebra Mean Problem
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 read my books aloud before they were published.
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Books Publisher Read
People are usually surprised to hear this, but I don’t really read children’s books.
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Books Children People
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
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.
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Book Imagination Stories
I enjoy writing for third and fourth graders most of all.
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Enjoy Thirds Writing
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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School Thinking Two
Children should learn that reading is pleasure, not just something that teachers make you do in school.
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Children Reading Teacher
If you don’t see the book you want on the shelves, write it.
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Book Want Writing
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
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.
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Patience Reading Teacher
I had a bad time in school in the first grade. Because I had been a rather lonely child on a farm, but I was free and wild and to be shut up in a classroom – there were 40 children on those days in the classroom, and it was quite a shock.
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Children Classroom Grade Lonely School
I didn’t start out writing to give children hope, but I’m glad some of them found it.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Children Giving Writing
I had a very wise mother. She always kept books that were my grade level in our house.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Book Mother Wise

I didn’t start out writing to give children hope, but I’m glad some of them found it.

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I didn’t start out writing to give children hope, but I’m glad some of them found it.

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Popular Authors

More Beverly Cleary Quotes