From: Angelica Carpenter <angelica>
Date: Fri, 04 Aug 2000 11:45:16 -0700

As a child I read these books over and over. I liked them because they were about girls like me and because they were funny. The humor appealed even after I knew it by heart. Although I had an unusual and precocious little sister two years younger than I was, and although I was Beezus' age when I started reading the books, I identified more with Ramona. I thought that people misjudged her. Often she meant well and I sympathised with her. We moved frequently when I was a child. In each new town, I went right to the C's in the children's dept. of the public library, read any new (to me) Clearys I found, but also reread the Beezus and Ramona books. I think they made me feel at home in a new place. The humor has lasted a lifetime--when I read B& R aloud to my daughter, who was five, I could not get through the chapter where Ramona puts her doll in the oven. I laughed so hard I cried, all the while appreciating, as a grown-up, the wonderful writing style.

I don't think the new book, where Ramona falls through the ceiling, is very funny. Is this because I read it as an adult?

Angelica Carpenter, Curator, Arne Nixon Center for the Study of Children's Literature, California State Univeristy, Fresno
Received on Fri 04 Aug 2000 01:45:16 PM CDT