Beverly Cleary

Cleary worked between 1916 and 2021 across novelist, children's writer, autobiographer, librarian and writer and 1 further recorded occupations. Every statement below returns to a source shown in the evidence panel; where the record is silent or divided, the article says so instead of resolving it.

Beverly Cleary studied at University of Washington, University of California, Berkeley and Grant High School. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is children's and young adult literature. Works named in the authority record are Ramona, The Mouse and the Motorcycle, Dear Mr. Distinctions recorded are National Medal of Arts, Newbery Medal, Library of Congress Living Legend and Children's Literature Legacy Award.

• Name — Beverly Cleary • Birth Name — Beverly Atlee Bunn • Born — 12 April 1916 • Birthplace — McMinnville, Oregon, U.S. • Died — 25 March 2021 • Place of death — Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, U.S. • Resting Place — Pike Cemetery, Yamhill, Oregon • Education — * University of California, Berkeley (B.A.) • University of Washington (B.A.) • Occupation — Writer and librarian • Language — English • Years Active — 1950–2005 • Notable Works — * Henry Huggins series • Ramona series • The Mouse and the Motorcycle • Dear Mr. Henshaw • Awards — * Laura Ingalls Wilder Award (1975) • National Book Award (1981) • Newbery Medal (1984) • National Medal of Arts (2003) • Children — 2 • Website — beverlycleary.com

• Illustration — Cleary as a senior at the University of California, Berkeley, 1938 Beverly Atlee Bunn was born on April 12, 1916, in McMinnville, Oregon, to Chester Lloyd Bunn, a farmer, and Mable Atlee Bunn, a schoolteacher. Cleary was an only child and lived on a farm in rural Yamhill, Oregon, in her early childhood. She was raised Presbyterian. When she was six years old, her family moved to Portland, Oregon, where her father had secured a job as a bank security officer. The adjustment from living in the country to the city was difficult for Cleary, and she struggled in school; in first grade, her teacher placed her in a group for struggling readers. Cleary said, "The first grade was sorted into three reading groups—Bluebirds, Redbirds and Blackbirds. I was a Blackbird. To be a Blackbird was to be disgraced. I wanted to read, but somehow could not." With some work, Cleary's reading skills improved, but she eventually found reading boring, complaining that many stories were simple and unsurprising, and wondering why authors often did not write with humor or about ordinary people. However, on a rainy afternoon at home during Cleary's third-grade year, she found herself enjoying reading The Dutch Twins, a book by Lucy Fitch Perkins about the adventures of ordinary children. The book was an epiphany for her, and afterward, she started to spend a lot of time reading and at the library. By sixth grade, a teacher suggested that Cleary should become a children's writer based on essays she had written for class assignments. After graduating from Portland's Grant High School in 1934, Cleary entered Chaffey Junior College in Ontario, California, which offered lower tuition fees than four-year universities, something many students needed during the Great Depression, with aspirations of becoming a children's librarian. After two years at Chaffey, she was accepted to the University of California, Berkeley, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English in 1938. While in college, Cleary worked odd jobs to pay her tuition, including working as a seamstress and a chambermaid. During what Cleary described as "two of the most interesting years of my life ", she was one of the first residents of women's cooperative Stebbins Hall, and met her future husband, Clarence Cleary, at a school dance. In 1939, she graduated from the School of Librarianship at the University of Washington with a second bachelor's degree in library science and accepted a year-long position as a children's librarian in Yakima, Washington. Her parents disapproved of her relationship with Cleary, a Roman Catholic, so the couple eloped and were married in 1940. After World War II, they settled in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. In 1955, Cleary gave birth to twins, Malcolm and Marianne. She lived in Carmel Valley Village in California from the 1960s onwards.

• Illustration — Cleary in 1971 After her graduation from the University of Washington in 1939, she served as a children's librarian in Yakima, Washington, until 1940, and then as the post librarian at the U.S. Army Hospital on Camp John T. Knight in Oakland, California, from 1942 to 1945. She also worked at Sather Gate Book Shop in Berkeley before becoming a full-time writer for children. As a children's librarian, Cleary empathized with her young patrons, who had difficulty finding books with characters they could identify with, and she struggled to find enough books to suggest that would appeal to them. After a few years of making recommendations and performing live storytelling in her role as librarian, Cleary decided to start writing children's books about characters that young readers could relate to. Cleary has said, "I believe in that 'missionary spirit' among children's librarians. Kids deserve books of literary quality, and librarians are so important in encouraging them to read and selecting books that are appropriate." Cleary's first book, Henry Huggins (1950), was the first in a series of fictional chapter books about Henry, his dog Ribsy, his neighborhood friend Beezus and her little sister Ramona. When writing the book, Cleary took inspiration from the times she composed stories for children during Saturday afternoon story hours when she worked as a librarian in Yakima. Like many of her later works, Henry Huggins is a novel about people living ordinary lives and is based on Cleary's own childhood experiences, the kids in her neighborhood growing up, as well as children she met while working as a librarian. Although her book was accepted by Morrow, the first publisher she sent it to, it had been initially rejected, and Cleary had added the characters of Beezus and Ramona while revising it. Cleary's first book to center a story on the Quimby sisters, Beezus and Ramona, was published in 1955. A publisher asked her to write a book about a kindergarten student. Cleary resisted, because she had not attended kindergarten, but later changed her mind after the birth of her twins. By 1984, her books had sold 3.5 million copies in hardback. Cleary also wrote two memoirs, one about her childhood, entitled A Girl from Yamhill (1988), and one about her years in college and as an adult up to writing her first book, entitled My Own Two Feet (1995). During a 2011 interview for the Los Angeles Times, at age 95, Cleary stated, "I've had an exceptionally happy career."

Cleary's books have been historically noted for their attention to the daily minutiae of childhood, specifically the experience of children growing up in middle-class families. Leonard S. Marcus, a children's literature historian, said of Cleary's work: "When you're the right age to read Cleary's books you're likely at your most impressionable time in life as a reader. [Her books] both entertain children and give them courage and insight into what to expect from their lives." Cleary's employment of humor has also been noted by critics; William Grimes of The New York Times wrote that Cleary used a "humorous, lively style" while "ma[king] compelling drama out of the everyday problems, small injustices and perplexing mysteries – adults chief among them – that define middle-class American childhood ", while Roger Sutton of The Horn Book Magazine noted that "Cleary is funny in a very sophisticated way. She gets very close to satire, which I think is why adults like her, but she's still deeply respectful of her characters—nobody gets a laugh at the expense of another. I think kids appreciate that they're on a level playing field with adults." Pat Pflieger, professor of children's literature at West Chester University, commented: "Cleary's books have lasted because she understands her audience. She knows they're sometimes confused or frightened by the world around them, and that they feel deeply about things that adults can dismiss." Eliza Dresang, professor in children and youth services at the University of Washington Information School, Cleary's alma mater, said, "Those books don't seem so radical now, but they were when she was writing them ". Dresang added that Cleary's writing, "in terms of the topics [covered], the honesty, the accuracy, [and] the ability to portray real-life children ", was decades ahead of her time. Twentieth-Century Children's Writers said, "Beverly Cleary's impact as a children's writer cannot be overestimated... her extraordinary talent in creating memorable young characters whose exuberant spirit and zest for life attract young and old readers alike."

Cleary's husband, Clarence, died in 2004. She celebrated her 100th birthday on April 12, 2016. On March 25, 2021, Cleary died at her retirement home in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, aged 104.

Key: † Henry Huggins series (1950–1964), ‡ Ramona series (1955–1999)

• Ramona (1988): Ten-part Canadian TV series starring Sarah Polley as eight-year-old Ramona Quimby. • Ramona and Beezus (2010): Movie starring Joey King as Ramona and Selena Gomez as Beezus.

Beverly Cleary was born on 12 April 1916 in McMinnville. Cleary held the nationality of United States. Cleary was educated at University of California, Berkeley and Grant High School. Cleary worked as novelist, children's writer, autobiographer and librarian, and the authority record catalogues a further 2 occupations under the same name, among them writer and illustrator. Cleary was active from 1939 to 1999. Cleary worked in English.

Cleary wrote as well as composed, and is recorded as novelist, children's writer and writer. 26 books and published texts survive in the institutional catalogues, spanning 1951 to 1999. Among them are Ellen Tebbits (1951), Henry and Beezus (1952), Otis Spofford (1953), Beezus and Ramona (1955), Fifteen (1956) and Henry and the Paper Route (1957). The whole run is set out in the catalogue below.