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Ramona lives on Klickitat Street in Portland,
Oregon, and attends Glenwood School through second grade. The
grocery store that is being built on the vacant lot across the
street from the school while Ramona is in kindergarten creates
much excitement—as well as mud. Ramona and her friends walk to
school and play on the block and at Glenwood Park. When she is
in third grade, Ramona’s world expands because the school boundaries
have changed, and she now takes the bus to Cedarhurst Primary
School. When she rides the school bus to the home of her new friend
Daisy, she realizes she is venturing farther than she ever has
before without an adult.
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Howie Kemp,
son of her mother’s friend, is Ramona’s good friend. He and Ramona
enjoy building things together, but his continual refusal to get
excited about things makes her furious.
Willa Jean
is Howie’s messy little sister, who people say reminds them of
Ramona when she was little, much to Ramona’s chagrin.
Davy (in-the-Gravy)
is a gentle boy who struggles with his schoolwork and whom Ramona
longs to kiss so much that she chases him every day her first
few years of school.
Susan (Snoozin’)
with the boing-boing curls, Ramona’s nemesis throughout many school
years, exasperates Ramona with her goody-goody smugness.
Danny (Yard
Ape), a new classmate in the third grade, calls Ramona Superfoot
and Egghead, but she doesn’t mind because she secretly likes him.
Daisy, who
moves to Portland when Ramona is in fourth grade, becomes Ramona’s
kind, loyal best friend.
Henry Huggins
and his dog, Ribsy, are actually
Beezus’s friends, but Ramona vows to marry Henry after he rescues
her and her red rain boots from the mud puddle.
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A bright, creative child who wants to
please her teacher but who also enjoys the attention of her peers,
Ramona experiences some frustrations adjusting to school. She
begins kindergarten wanting “so much to be loved by her pretty
new teacher” that her heart fills with joy when Miss Binney praises
the way Ramona makes her letter Q’s. Things do not go so well
with her first-grade teacher, Mrs. Griggs, who does not seem to
understand Ramona’s brand of creativity. As a second grader, Ramona
is delighted to learn that Mrs. Rudge considers her "one of her
little sparklers who made teaching interesting." But when her
third-grade teacher, Mrs. Whaley, calls her a show-off and a nuisance,
Ramona is hurt and angry. Later, Ramona and Mrs. Whaley clear
up their misunderstanding, and Ramona feels better about life
in the third grade. Ramona’s fourth-grade teacher, eagle-eyed
Mrs. Meacham, is a little too keen on spelling for Ramona’s taste,
but she has learned how to survive various types of teachers after
all these years.
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Ramona’s frustrations with words begin
in kindergarten when Miss Binney tells her to “sit here for the
present” and teaches her a song about the “dawnzer lee light.”
Her puzzlement continues as she wonders if Miss Binney’s mother
is coming to take Miss Binney home because Miss Binney tells the
class, “we must rest so we will not be tired when our mothers
come to take us home.” But Ramona loves the sound of the words
“baddest witch in the world” and “which witch.” Unfortunately,
she gets in trouble for sticking out her tongue to show the neighbor
woman the cat has not got her tongue. In Ramona the Brave, Ramona
likes the concept of word-attacking and thinks as she reads to
herself, “Pow! I got you, fire engine. Monkey. Pow! I got you,
monkey.” Ramona is puzzled when her second-grade teacher, Mrs.
Rudge, tells her, “There’s no such word as can’t.” The illogic
of Mrs. Rudge’s statement makes it untrue and leaves Ramona unsettled.
However, when Ramona’s father says his grandmother had to “scrimp
and pinch to make ends meet,” Ramona likes the sound of the words
and joyfully uses them to explain why she cannot get her hair
cut professionally. Later she muses about why words don’t always
mean what they should. Picky-picky, for example, is not a carpet,
even though he is a pet that rides in a car.
Because Beverly Cleary understands that,
like Ramona, other children enjoy words, she does not hesitate
to put big words in her stories, such as enticingly, trundled,
indignant, ferocious, anguished, stolidly, predicament, infuriating,
reluctance, companionable, virtuously, defiant, expedition, encumbered,
and exasperation.
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Read-Alouds
The Ramona books are wonderful read-alouds.
Teachers may want to read all eight books to the class over the
course of the year, or they may decide to select the books that
take place in the same grade their students are in and read those
to the whole class. Parents interested in reading to their children
at home may want to follow the teacher’s lead and make sharing
Ramona books a family activity.
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Independent Reading
Mrs. Whaley, Ramona’s third-grade teacher in Ramona Quimby,
Age 8, gives the class DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) or Sustained
Silent Reading time. Ramona enjoys reading independently without
having to write summaries or list vocabulary words. Students might
think it fun to have the option of reading books about Ramona
during Sustained Silent Reading periods in their classes.
Literature Circles
Students often like to work in small groups. Arrange for four
to six students to meet as a literature circle and discuss books
they have read about Ramona. Each literature circle could prepare
a project based on its book(s) to present to the class.
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Reading
“I can’t read and it isn’t fair,” protests Ramona in Beezus
and Ramona when Beezus refuses to read to her all the time. Throughout
the books, Ramona’s love affair with books grows. As a preschooler,
her favorite picture books are about steam shovels with lots of
noises and fairy tales with witches, goblins, or ogres. At night,
however, she prefers cozy stories about nice bears and bunnies.
When Ramona daydreams about having her mother all to herself in
Ramona and Her Mother, she imagines her mother selecting books
from her bookcase that she enjoyed hearing as a child. Using the
descriptions Cleary provides throughout the various Ramona books,
ask students to figure out what books might be in Ramona’s bookcase.
It might be fun to set up a Ramona bookcase in the classroom and
invite students to read the books Ramona loves.
In Ramona Quimby, Age 8, Ramona is pleased that she can now
read chapter books and is delighted to discover that she can read
the menu at Whopperburger without relying on the pictures. Students
might enjoy reflecting upon their experiences learning to read
and trying to remember what it was like not knowing how to make
sense of the printed word.
Creative Writing
In Ramona and Her Father, Beezus, who dreads creative writing
because she does not believe she is imaginative, is relieved when
the assignment is to “interview an old person and ask questions
about something they did when they were our age.” The interviews
written by Beezus’s classmates will be compiled into a class book.
Consider making this same assignment for your students.
Throughout the books, Mr. Quimby spouts wise sayings he learned
from his grandmother. Encourage students to compile the wise sayings
of Mr. Quimby’s grandmother and discuss what they mean. Students
might want to add some of their family sayings to the collection
and then write some of their own.
Spelling
In fourth grade, Ramona is faced with the daunting task of improving
her spelling. She finds it tedious to look up words and appreciates
people who know what she means and let misspelled words pass.
Unfortunately, Mrs. Meacham is a teacher who demands correct spelling
and precision of language. She is proud of Ramona and Daisy when
they reprimand a certified public accountant for using “gonna”
and “shoulda” in an advertisement. Students might want to bring
in examples of misspelled or nonexistent words they find in the
newspaper or elsewhere.
Art
Ramona enjoys crayoning because it makes her troubles fade.
She draws unusually well, and she can make almost anything out
of paper, crayons, staples, and Scotch tape. She and her father
work on drawing the longest picture in the world on a roll of
shelf paper. They draw the state of Oregon by choosing important
landmarks such as the interstate highway and Mount Hood. Students
might want to take on this same task using their own state. What
landmarks would they select for their pictures?
Drama
Beginning in Ramona the Pest, Ramona notices many things about
grown-ups. For example, she can’t understand why grown-ups think
children grow up quickly when she thinks growing up is the slowest
process there is, and she is infuriated when adults talk about
her in front of her. Her general observation is that most grown-ups
don’t understand children’s feelings, and she is happy when she
finds one who does—at least sometimes. Drawing on Ramona’s running
commentary about grown-ups throughout the eight books, it might
be fun for readers to make a list of Ramona’s rules for how grown-ups
should behave and create a dramatic presentation designed to inspire
adults to behave better.
Class Project
After the class has read one or more Ramona books, suggest they
create a Ramona Festival in which they display projects and presentations
based on the book(s).
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