| In this touching and funny story, the ebullient
Ramona, feeling brave and grown-up, enters first grade. Quickly she
finds that her new teacher, Mrs. Griggs, appears perplexed by pupils
who like to be different. Since Ramona cannot help being different,
clearly the two are incompatible.
Nevertheless, Ramona can be counted on to keep things lively. Enraged
when Susan copies her wise old owl prepared for Parents' Night and
receives praise for it, Ramona rebels. Overcome by guilt and no
longer brave, she tries mightily thereafter to please her teacher,
but still Mrs. Griggs infuriatingly reports home that Ramona lacks
self-control. Only because she is a girl with spunk, to use her
father's word, does Ramona's courage return, earning her at last
an uneasy truce with the teacher.
Beverly Cleary draws here a portrait of a little girl discovering
with astonishment that the way others see her is not always the
way she sees herself. In the contrast lie moments of emerging self-knowledge
for Ramona and of delicious hilarity for the reader.
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