Beverly Cleary Biography

The author Beverly Cleary is a well-known children's author. Her books include Beezus and Ramona, Henry Huggins, and Ralph S. Mouse. In all Beverly Cleary wrote nearly 40 children's books that are as well loved today as when she first started writing them more than 60 years ago.

Beverly Cleary also wrote two memoirs, A Girl from Yamhill and My Own Two Feet. These true stories are even better than her children's books!

Photo of a beat up (well loved) Beverly Cleary book. Photo Credit: Peggy Hazelwood

A Girl from Yamhill

Beverly Atlee Bunn was born in 1916 in McMinnville, Oregon, and was raised in Yamhill, Oregon, until she was school age. She was an only child, and her family moved to Portland, Oregon, where Beverly attended school.

She lived in Northeast Portland and played on the streets where her characters Henry, Beezus, and Ramona played. She even named the streets in those books after the real Portland streets where she lived, like Klickitat Street.

Beverly left Portland to attend college in California. She graduated in 1938 from the University of California, Berkeley. After graduation, she went to library school and became a librarian. She worked in the Portland library system until she and her husband moved to California.

In 1940, she married Clarence Cleary. They had twins, a son and daughter. In 1950, her first novel, Henry Huggins was published. Beverly Cleary now lives in Carmel, California.

Source: Beverly Cleary's Web Site

Photo of the Cleary's with the Ramona statue in Grant Park, Portland, Oregon.

Photo Credit: Multnomah County Library

Two Autobiographies by Beverly Cleary

I've read both of Beverly Cleary's memoirs: A Girl from Yamhill and My Own Two Feet. (I love reading memoirs / autobiographies by writers I admire.) I found these books to be fascinating and revealing.

If you get a chance to read them, you'll be surprised at her own family's dynamics, her story of going to college during the Depression and going on to graduate school, which was almost unheard of, and more.

Beverly Cleary and her husband had two children--twins! When Beverly Cleary wrote Mitch and Amy, a children's book about siblings who are twins, she probably drew on the experience of parenting twins.

The Beverly Cleary sculpture garden is located just south of the playground in Grant Park on N.E. 33rd Ave., between Knott Street and Broadway. To see the statues of Henry, Ribsy, and Ramona with fountains, you have to enter the park. The Portland Parks Department turns on the water when weather and conditions permit.

Henry Huggins was Beverly Cleary's first book. Henry is my second favorite Beverly Cleary character.

I've been a big fan of Romana Quimby for decades. I can totally relate to being the little sister, misunderstanding why things are the way they are, and being a pest.

Beverly Cleary made up such memorable characters in her books.

Beverly Cleary was awarded the Newbery Medal in 1984 for Dear Mr. Henshaw. Her books Ramona and Her Father in 1978 and Ramona Quimby, Age 8 in 1982 were named Newbery Honor Books.

She also was named the Library of Congress Living Legend for 2000, and she won the National Medal of Arts from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2003.