Childhood Favorites...Beverly Cleary

Childhood favorites. Everyone has a favorite book or author from childhood. A book that touched them or changed them. A book that perhaps initiated their love of reading and put them on the path of libraries and learning.

Books: Childhood Favorites is a monthly series focusing on beloved books from the past. 

Donald Zolan, Quiet Time.

Last month Beverly Cleary celebrated her 100th birthday. Amazing. I never got into Ramona or Henry Huggins. I did like Ellen Tebbits. The Boy loved The Mouse and the Motorcycle.

My favorite Beverly Cleary books were what are now called the First Love series. I love that Beverly so often set her books in the San Francisco Bay Area, because that is where I grew up. I checked these books out of my elementary school library and finally got my own copies which I then wore out from re-reading them so much.


Fifteen. I loved Jane. I could relate to Jane and some of her insecurities and who wouldn't love Stan? Set in the Bay Area. Awesome.

The Luckiest Girl. I loved Shelley. Shelley wanted to be accepted and her somewhat prim and proper parents frustrated her. Spending the school year in California with her mother's best friend opened up her world.


 Jean and Johnny. This was one I liked the least, mostly because Jean was just so awkward and embarrassing. But then, who isn't as a young teenager?

Sister of the Bride. I have sisters. I love books about sisters and I loved this one about Barbara and Rosemary and Barbara's worries that things will change when her sister gets married because Rosemary was too modern to get married and settle down.

Looking back, I'm wishing I still had copies of these so I could sit down and read them again. It's always so fun to revisit old friends. Although, I read these so much, I can still picture scenes and situations and conversations.

What about you? What is one of your childhood favorites?

Comments

  1. I can't believe I never read any Beverly Cleary. But usually, when I return to "old friends" I wonder what I found so wonderful, so I hate to do it and then get disillusioned! :--)

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    1. Beverly Cleary is wonderful. While I have sometimes found that old favorites don't live up to time, most of the time it is just a fun walk down memory lane!

      Thanks for stopping by!

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    2. The one that stuck out to me is The Mouse and the Motorcycle.

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    3. I never read The Mouse and the Motorcycle, but that was The Boy's favorite book when he was little!

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  2. I never read any of those, but I loved the Ramona books when my kids read them. Did you ever read any Carolyn Haywood?

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    1. I haven't. I'm not familiar with that name. When did she write?

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  3. I liked historical fiction. Books like "Iron Peacock" and the "Piper of the Clan" and the "Witch of Blackbird Pond" were my favorites. I still have them on my bookshelves today.

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    1. I love Mary Stetson Clarke! I have a future Childhood Favorites post aleady written about her. The Iron Peacock is one of my all time favorite stories. That and The Glass Phoenix.

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