She rode her bike and played outside and had adventures that weren’t on a screen. Waiting for us to be made in her image, to make her real as life itself.įor us Gen X girls growing up in the 80s, Ramona was a revelation (even if we were too young to know the word “revelation”). Waiting for us to embrace Ramona as she was ready to embrace us. But I’d like to think she imagined us before she even knew us - a generation of latchkey kids just waiting to be born, waiting for this friend who lived to tell us that we were okay in all of our imperfect, wiseass glory. Perhaps Cleary could not have imagined how deep and wide the ocean of her readership would become, how beloved Ramona and her family would be, or how much her spunky little character would grow to be an avatar for a generation of not-perfect girls.

And for every quirky little girl who entered that library seeking a character that spoke to her, that spoke like her, that spoke about her - Ramona was her contemporary. In our little school library, tucked away on the second floor of the “old building” at Vigo Elementary, Ramona had her own dedicated display shelf among the Highlights magazines and Choose Your Own Adventure books. For many, the Ramona series was their first introduction to brand awareness and author loyalty. Ramona may have entered the literary conversation in the 50s, but the series hit its zenith in the late 1970s and early 1980s with a new generation of young readers, library cards in hand. Two of her books, Ramona and Her Father (1977) and Ramona Quimby, Age 8 (1981) were both winners of the prestigious Newbery Medal.

While Cleary first put Ramona on the literary map in the 1950s, she continued to create new stories for the character until 1999, when she published Ramona’s World, the last in the series. Quimby would go on to be Cleary’s best-known character and, for many a square-peg-in-a-round-hole girl, a personal touchstone.

Even though she lived to the advanced age of 104, it feels too soon to let Beverly Cleary go.īut let go we must - and with grace and gratitude for the journey she took us on since she introduced audiences to the precociously independent Ramona Quimby in the 1950 classic Henry Huggins. How Beverly Cleary Encouraged a Generation of Unapologetic WomenĪs it happens when we lose any larger-than-life cultural figure, we knew this day would come, but it still hurts.

Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary