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I read my books aloud before they were published.

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
Aloud
Published
Books
Read
Book

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I have lovely memories of Los Angeles in the 1930s. I came down to live with my mother's cousin and they invited me to come and go to junior college for a year.
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The humiliation that Jane had felt turned to something else--grief perhaps, or regret. Regret that she had not known how to act with a boy, regret that she had not been wiser.
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Children want to do what grownups do.
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I wanted to be a ballerina. I changed my mind.
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Today I discovered two kinds of people who go to high school: those who wear new clothes to show off on the first day, and those who wear their oldest clothes to show they think school is unimportant.
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Otis was inspired by a boy who sat across the aisle from me in sixth grade. He was a lively person. My best friend appears in assorted books in various disguises.
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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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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.
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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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I was a great reader of fairy tales. I tried to read the entire fairy tale section of the library.
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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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I hope children will be happy with the books I've written, and go on to be readers all of their lives.
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I write in longhand on yellow legal pads.
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I was a very observant child. The boys in my books are based on boys in my neighborhood growing up.
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People are usually surprised to hear this, but I don't really read children's books.
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As a child, I disliked books in which children learned to be 'better' children.
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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 am not a pest, Ramona Quimby told her big sister Beezus.
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Writers are good at plucking out what they need here and there.
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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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