American children’s author Beverly Cleary
Credit: State Library Photograph Collection, Washington State Archives

April 2 is International Children’s Book Day, a celebration of the role that such books play in the lives of children and their development into adults. Some children’s books take readers to imaginary lands and on unusual adventures. Others may describe places and events that are familiar. Some children’s books address readers’ curiosity about life in other countries or in distant times. Biographies for children portray the lives and accomplishments of notable people. Some works, particularly those aimed at older children and adolescents, deal with the difficult situations often faced by individuals and society.

This International Children’s Book Day, World Book remembers the beloved American author Beverly Cleary, who died last week at the age of 104. Cleary wrote more than 40 children’s books. Her books are noted for their humor and for their realistic and natural dialogue. Cleary is best known for her series of books about the adventures of two youngsters named Henry Huggins and Ramona Quimby. The two characters and their friends live in a middle-class suburb of Portland, Oregon. In 1975, Cleary received the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award (now called the Children’s Literature Legacy Award) for her lifelong contributions to children’s literature.

Cleary has been praised as one of the first American authors to include children of divorced or single-parent families in her books. She won the 1984 Newbery Medal for Dear Mr. Henshaw (1983), a novel about a sixth-grade boy named Leigh Botts. The boy’s parents are divorced and he is attending a new school—situations that confront many of Cleary’s readers. In a series of letters Leigh writes to Mr. Henshaw, his favorite author, the reader learns of Leigh’s loneliness. One year older and much happier, Leigh appears in Cleary’s sequel, Strider (1991).

Beverly Atlee Bunn was born on April 12, 1916, in McMinnville, Oregon. She married Clarence T. Cleary in 1940. She began her adult career as a librarian. Cleary’s books reflected her desire to write about the kinds of rascals she met during read-aloud sessions in her library. One of her major complaints growing up was that she could not find funny books that featured kids like her. To solve the problem, Cleary wrote her first children’s book, Henry Huggins (1950). Ramona first appeared as a major character in Beezus and Ramona (1955). Cleary’s fantasy series about Ralph Mouse was inspired by her son’s love of motorcycles. The series began with The Mouse and the Motorcycle (1965).

Cleary wrote two autobiographies, A Girl from Yamhill (1988) and My Own Two Feet (1995), as well as the autobiographical children’s novel Emily’s Runaway Imagination (1961). She died on March 25, 2021.