One Beverly Cleary decided to take an aim at a complaint she heard from children that there were no books "about us." Thus, 1950 brought Henry Huggins, her first book.
The book opens with a boy of about nine or ten finding a stray dog he takes home... on the city bus. Well, he tries to. The book tells many more stories of Henry and his dog Ribsy that—setting and characters aside—had little or no overarching plot.
However, what did work about Henry Huggins was Cleary's uncanny ability to tell stories from the point of view of a child. Henry doesn't want to play a little boy in the school Christmas play not because he doesn't want to be in the play, but because he doesn't want to get teased for the role. He loses his friend's football and collects worms to get money to buy a new one.
Henry's adventures continued for five more books and began to have overarching plot lines. In Henry and Beezus, Henry is trying to save his money and find moneymaking schemes to buy a bicycle. Beezus—Henry's friend Beatrice Quimby, nicknamed from how her little sister would try to say her name—tries to help Henry, even winning him a used bike in a police auction, except that it's a girl's bike. In Henry and Ribsy, Henry is tasked with keeping Ribsy out of trouble in return for joining his father on a fishing trip, where he intends to catch a ten pound salmon. In Henry and the Paper Route, Henry decides to try and get a paper route. Next in Henry and the Clubhouse, Henry learns to balance his responsibilities.
Cleary was running out of ideas for Henry stories and the last book, Ribsy, follows Ribsy as he gets lost across town and tries to find his way home. She doesn't try to anthropomorphize Ribsy, describing what seem like reasonable thoughts for a dog. He recognizes certain words and tone of voice, but he doesn't turn into a magical dog who understands English.
However, while she maintained the format of writing episodic chapters that could be excerpted and tell a complete story, over arching narratives became more important as she went on. Over time, plot points introduced in one chapter would be resolved in a later one.
Cleary wrote a spinoff book from the Henry Huggins series in 1955: Beezus and Ramona. Beezus becomes the star of this book, dealing with her exasperating preschool age sister Ramona, who insists on having Beezus read her favorite book about steam shovels over and over. Ramona can't seem but not get in trouble and Beezus begins to feel bad that she sometimes doesn't like her sister.
Thirteen years later, the Ramona series properly began with Ramona the Pest (the previous book is considered the first one, but is very different from the rest) as Cleary writes the adventures of Ramona as she goes to kindergarten. The very young Quimby sister has trouble adjusting and understanding how she should behave. It's almost too funny when she thinks "The Star Spangled Banner" is about "The dawnzer lee light," making Ramona assume the song is about a lamp. And when Miss Binney tells Ramona to "sit here for the present," Ramona expects to remain seated until she gets a gift. Finally at the end, things get to be too much for our heroine when she's suspended from school.
Ramona moves on to first grade in Ramona the Brave as she gets her own bedroom for the first time when the Quimbys add on to their house. She also has to deal with a fellow classmate copying from her and getting embarrassed in front of the whole class.
Ramona begins second grade in Ramona and her Father, which sees the Quimby family tighten their belts when Mr. Quimby is laid off and has to find other work. What makes it work is that there's a lot that adults relate to as well. In addition, Beezus and Ramona confront their father's smoking habit, convincing him to quit. It climaxes with a happy Christmas in which Ramona volunteers to be a sheep in a pageant.
The story continues in Ramona and her Mother in which Ramona's mischievous streak returns as Ramona wishes her mother would like her as much as Beezus and consider her "her girl." The family has a lot of tension and Ramona reaches her breaking point.
Ramona Quimby, Age 8 sends Ramona to third grade with new friends at a new school as the Quimbys financial tightrope walking continues. Now if only Ramona can just not crack raw eggs on her head, or avoid getting sick at school. There's also a humorous episode in which Beezus and Ramona are disgusted at being served tongue for dinner and are tasked with cooking dinner themselves.
Ramona Forever served as a decent series finale when it was first published. When Ramona has a horrible time after school while being babysat at her friend Howie's house, Beezus agrees to stay at home. But the girls discover their mother is pregnant with another child, and then their beloved Aunt Beatrice is getting married while the Quimbys consider moving away from their home.
Fifteen years later in 1999, Ramona's World was published, nearly fifty years after she'd debuted in Henry Huggins. In this book, Ramona moves on to fourth grade and makes a new friend in Daisy, a girl whose family recently moved to the area. Ramona also begins picking up more responsibility in the family as for the first time, she's a big sister.
Beverly Cleary's series of stories of these kids who live on Klickitat Street in Portland, Oregon is like a nice warming bowl of chicken soup. They're a little nostalgic, but some of the earlier entries get dated when they refer to exact prices that are far outdated and a number of them were written during times when children were allowed to roam around town without adult supervision. They're about kids facing issues real children face, and the characters talk to their parents about their problems and often get good advice, likely encouraging young readers to do the same.
Still, it might be noted that there isn't a lot of representation of people of color. None of the human characters are written to sound like anything other than Caucasian people, but I'm sure there could be new interpretations of certain characters. Some of this came with the genre at the time as well as the fact that Cleary herself is a white woman. I won't say that this makes them bad, but I do wonder if children of color might have trouble relating to the characters.
The books are available in print, ebook and through audiobook where they're capably narrated by (mostly) Neil Patrick Harris for the Henry Huggins series and Stockard Channing for the Ramona series. The Ramona series became the basis of a 10 episode television series in the late 1980s starring Sarah Polley (the plots are closely based on the books, mixing episodes from Ramona and her Mother, Ramona Quimby, Age 8 and Ramona Forever and charmingly adapted, even if the lower budget shows), and more recently the film Ramona and Beezus starring Selena Gomez and Joey King as the sisters.
I used to listen to several of the books on audio cassettes borrowed from the library, but recently discovered the books were available as collections on Audible. (The Henry Huggins Audio Collection and Ramona Quimby Audio Collection are available for just one credit each, quite a bargain.) I decided to revisit them and really enjoyed them. (Though I know the Henry Huggins series wasn't read by Neil Patrick Harris back in my day, though he did a great job.)
The series could potentially continue, and while Cleary has retired (she is currently 104 years old), I could easily see some up and coming writer deciding to explore Cleary's Klickitat Street on their own terms.
