From: linnea hendrickson <lhendr>
Date: Fri, 04 Aug 2000 15:23:23 -0600

I'm enjoying everyone's reminiscences of the Ramona books. I don't think I read them until I was reading them to my own children, but I remember still identifying with Ramona. I always wanted to have blond curls, not straight dark brown hair, so Ramona even looked like me. Like her, I had classmates and friends who had bouncy ringlets that went bong bong and I was jealous of them. "Just look at those ringlets," adults used coo over my friends. No one ever said, "Look at this nice straight brown hair!" Even now I can see myself wearing a Ramona scowl. I also remember the scene where Ramona dresses like a witch for Halloween and scares everyone, and then decides she really doesn't like being scary. And I'll never forget "Sit here for the present."

I had twin sheep, one black and one white. I named the black one Ramona and the white one Beezus. True to their names, Ramona was always the rambunctious one, while Beezus was much better behaved. Unfortunately, Ramona came to no good end -- we think she gulped her food, choked, and died -- so now we have only the much more boring Beezus.

The statues in the park in Portland are wonderful -- I visited one rainy day and my husband took lots of pictures of Ramona and me playing together in the rain.

Linnea

Linnea Hendrickson Lhendr at unm.edu http://www.unm.edu/~lhendr
Received on Fri 04 Aug 2000 04:23:23 PM CDT