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People are usually surprised to hear this, but I don't really read children's books.

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
Children
Really
People
Surprised
Usually
Hear
Books
Read
Book

More quotes by Beverly Cleary

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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.
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.
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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 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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Children should learn that reading is pleasure, not just something that teachers make you do in school.
Beverly Cleary
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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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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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Problem solving, and I don't mean algebra, seems to be my life's work. Maybe it's everyone's life's work.
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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.
Beverly Cleary
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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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As a child, I disliked books in which children learned to be 'better' children.
Beverly Cleary
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I am not a pest, Ramona Quimby told her big sister Beezus.
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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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I write in longhand on yellow legal pads.
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 wanted to be a ballerina. I changed my mind.
Beverly Cleary
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I was a very observant child. The boys in my books are based on boys in my neighborhood growing up.
Beverly Cleary
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I don't think children's inner feelings have changed. They still want a mother and father in the very same house they want places to play.
Beverly Cleary
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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.
Beverly Cleary
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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.
Beverly Cleary