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Didn’t the people who made those license plates care about little girls named Ramona?

Beverly Cleary

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
People are usually surprised to hear this, but I don’t really read children’s books.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Books Children People
I hope children will be happy with the books I’ve written, and go on to be readers all of their lives.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Children Happy Hope Readers
I didn’t start out writing to give children hope, but I’m glad some of them found it.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Children Giving Writing
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 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
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.
BEVERLY CLEARY

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

Ballerina Changed Mind
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
If she can’t spell, why is she a librarian? Librarians should know how to spell.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Know Librarians Should
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.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Book Chance Reading
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
The key to writing successful YA is to keep the adults out of the story as much as possible.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Keys Successful Writing
All knowledge is valuable to a librarian.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Knowledge Librarian Valuable

Didn’t the people who made those license plates care about little girls named Ramona?

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Didn’t the people who made those license plates care about little girls named Ramona?

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Popular Authors

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