Words matter. These are the best Beverly Cleary Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
I think adults sometimes don’t think about how children are feeling about the adult problems.
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.
Quite often somebody will say, What year do your books take place? and the only answer I can give is, In childhood.
I didn’t start out writing to give children hope, but I’m glad some of them found it.
I rarely read children’s books.
I grew up before there were strict leash laws.
‘Dear Mr. Henshaw’ came about because two different boys from different parts of the country asked me to write a book about a boy whose parents were divorced, and so I wrote ‘Dear Mr. Henshaw,’ and it won the Newbery, and I was – it’s been very popular.
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.
I hope children will be happy with the books I’ve written, and go on to be readers all of their lives.
I was a librarian.
In 50 years, the world has changed, especially for kids, but kids’ needs haven’t changed. They still need to feel safe, be close to their families, like their teachers, and have friends to play with.
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.
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.
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.
Children should learn that reading is pleasure, not just something that teachers make you do in school.
I don’t think children themselves have changed that much. It’s the world that has changed.
I like to read, walk, cook, and travel to cities. We live in the country, so we miss museums and the bustle of city life.
I read my books aloud before they were published.
One rainy Sunday when I was in the third grade, I picked up a book to look at the pictures and discovered that even though I did not want to, I was reading. I have been a reader ever since.
I had a very wise mother. She always kept books that were my grade level in our house.
Novels by British writers are among my favorites because our family has enjoyed travel in England and because they are written with an economy of words as if they were written with a pen instead of a computer. Penelope Fitzgerald is a favorite.
My favorite books are a constantly changing list, but one favorite has remained constant: the dictionary. Is the word I want to use spelled practice or practise? The dictionary knows. The dictionary also slows down my writing because it is such interesting reading that I am distracted.
What interests me is what children go through while growing up.
I was a very observant child. The boys in my books are based on boys in my neighborhood growing up.
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.
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.
I just wrote about childhood as I had known it.
I write in longhand on yellow legal pads.
I longed for funny stories about the sort of children who lived in my neighborhood.
Over the years, I have been approached about making Ramona into a cartoon or movie, but I was afraid that no one could really capture the spunky character of Ramona.
I wanted to be a ballerina. I changed my mind.
Children want to do what grownups do.
I know that when I was a children’s librarian, that was about 1940, boys particularly asked where were the books about kids like us, and there weren’t any at that time.
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.
My mother always kept library books in the house, and one rainy Sunday afternoon – this was before television, and we didn’t even have a radio – I picked up a book to look at the pictures and discovered I was reading and enjoying what I read.