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Children want to do what grownups do.

Beverly Cleary

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Beverly Cleary
Age: 104 †
Born: 1916
Born: April 12
Died: 2021
Died: March 25
Author
Autobiographer
Librarian
Writer
McMinnville
Oregon
Beverly Atlee Cleary
Grownups
Children

More quotes by Beverly Cleary

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People are usually surprised to hear this, but I don't really read children's books.
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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.
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I grew up before there were strict leash laws.
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As a child, I disliked books in which children learned to be 'better' children.
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In seventh grade...I found a place on the [library]shelf where my book would be if I ever wrote a book, which I doubted.
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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.
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I was a great reader of fairy tales. I tried to read the entire fairy tale section of the library.
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My mother would read aloud to my father and me in the evening. She read mainly travel books.
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He was dressed as if everything he wore had come from different stores or from a rummage sale, except that the crease in his trousers was sharp and his shoes were shined.
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Neither the mouse nor the boy was the least bit surprised that each could understand the other. Two creatures who shared a love for motorcycles naturally spoke the same language.
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The key to writing successful YA is to keep the adults out of the story as much as possible.
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If you don't see the book you want on the shelves, write it.
Beverly Cleary
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Quite often somebody will say, What year do your books take place? and the only answer I can give is, In childhood.
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If we finished our work, the teacher would say, 'Now don't read ahead.' But sometimes I hid the book I was reading behind my geography book and did read ahead. You can hide a lot behind a geography book.
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I read my books aloud before they were published.
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Problem solving, and I don't mean algebra, seems to be my life's work. Maybe it's everyone's life's work.
Beverly Cleary
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Ramona stepped back into her closet, slid the door shut, pressed an imaginary button, and when her imaginary elevator had made its imaginary descent, stepped out onto the real first floor and raced a real problem. Her mother and father were leaving for Parents' Night.
Beverly Cleary
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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.
Beverly Cleary
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I was an only child I didn't have a sister, or sisters.
Beverly Cleary
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Children should learn that reading is pleasure, not just something that teachers make you do in school.
Beverly Cleary