by: Ellen C. Caldwell
for JSTOR Daily
American author Beverly Cleary turns 100 this week. Ever since the 1950 publication of her debut, Henry Huggins, Cleary has been prolific in her field, authoring over forty titles which have sold 91 million copies worldwide. She is recognized as a Library of Congress Living Legend and has won such awards as the National Book Award, the National Medal of Art from the National Endowment of the Arts, and the John Newbery Medal. Her birthday is even celebrated as “Drop Everything And Read” Day.
In her novels, which include Henry Huggins, Henry and Beezus, The Mouse and the Motorcycle, andRamona Quimby, Age 8, Cleary expertly weaves together stories of the more mundane and everyday experiences of children in a way that readers of all ages appreciate…In a personal literacy statement forThe Reading Teacher, Cleary explains, “I owe my literacy learning and appreciation to a mother who loved reading, read aloud, and believed in the use of the public library, and to my teachers who were strict in teaching the tools of writing.” Certainly this background informed her decision in the sixth grade to become a writer. As Paul C. Burns and Ruth Hines explain in an essay on Cleary’s wide appeal and humor, she aimed to write the books that she wanted to read, yet couldn’t find. In her own words, she wanted the “funny stories about ordinary American boys and girls. It seemed to me that all the children in books lived in foreign lands or were very rich or very poor or had adventures that could never happen to anyone I knew.” Burns and Hines argue that her professional training as a librarian helped prepare her for success in her field, “[h]er knowledge of children and her experience in working with them have made her extremely well qualified for writing just this kind of book.”