From: park/dobbin <dobbin>
Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 15:44:23 -0400

I'm scared to death to type this, but I think I've finally gathered enough courage. Did anybody else NOT love the Cleary Klickitat Street books when they were growing up? I liked Henry Huggins enough to read one or two of them, and the same with Ramona. But they never 'reverberated' with me the way other books and characters did (and continue to do, throughout my adulthood).

Thinking back, I remember feeling that there wasn't quite "enough" of any given aspect of the stories. They were funny--but I never found them belly-laugh hilarious. The characters got into trouble--but not enough trouble; their adventures simply weren't sufficiently perilous either physically or emotionally for me. I'm sure I was an 'escapist' reader--still am today--so perhaps their lives were in many ways a little too similar to mine to satisfy my need to 'get away' in a book.

That said, there were other 'slice-of-life' books I preferred to Cleary's. The Melendy books by Elizabeth Enright, for example. I'll have to do some more thinking about why I found Randy and Oliver so much more appealing than Henry, Beezus or Ramona.

I have tremendous respect for Beverly Cleary's contribution to children's literature, all the more so since reading the posts of the many on this list to whom her books were of great importance. But if I were playing the which-books-will-endure game, her titles would probably not make it onto my list.

Enjoying this thread!

Linda Sue Park
Received on Mon 07 Aug 2000 02:44:23 PM CDT