Beverly Cleary

Dear Mr. Henshaw

Beverly Cleary

• 1984 Newbery winner
• Score: 10.34

Dear Mr. Henshaw, I wish somebody would stop stealing the good stuff out of my lunchbag. I guess I wish a lot of other things, too. I wish someday Dad and Bandit would pull up in front in the rig…Dad would yell out of the cab, “Come on, Leigh. Hop in and I’ll give you a lift to school.”

Leigh Botts has been author Boyd Henshaw’s number one fan ever since he was in second grade. Now in sixth grade, Leigh lives with his mother and is the new kid at school. He’s lonely, troubled by the absence of his father, a cross-country trucker,…

Ralph S. Mouse

Beverly Cleary

• 1982 Golden Kite-fiction winner
• Score: 10.32

Presents the further adventures of a motorcycle-riding mouse who goes to school and becomes the instigator of an investigation of rodents and the peacemaker for two lonely boys.

Ramona and Her Mother

Beverly Cleary

• 1981 NBA–Youth winner
• Score: 10.31

Beverly Cleary has given books to each member of the Quimby household except Mrs. Quimby. Now she gets her turn at last in a story that hits the high and low points of a working mother’s life as seen from Ramona’s seven-and-a-half-year-old viewpoint.

Inevitably domestic tensions, not without their amusing side, occasionally arise. Mr. and Mrs. Quimby sometimes forget who is to do what, as when the Crock-Pot is not plugged in and dinner remains uncooked. Beezus acquires a ludicrous teased hairdo at the student body shop while Ramona gets a becoming pixie…

Ramona and Her Father

Beverly Cleary

• 1980 YRCA-Junior winner
• Score: 10.3

Ramona just wants everyone to be happy. If only her father would smile and joke again, her mother would look less worried, her sister would be cheerful, and Picky-picky would eat his cat-food. But Ramona’s father has lost his job, and nobody in the Quimby household is in a very good mood.

Ramona tries to cheer up the family as only Ramona can—by rehearsing for life as a rich and famous star of television commercials, for instance—but her best efforts only make things worse. Her sister, Beezus, calls her a, pest, her parents lose patience with her, and her…

Ramona the Pest

Beverly Cleary

• 1971 YRCA-Junior winner
• Score: 10.21

Ramona is off to kindergarten, and it’s the greatest day of her life. So why is she sitting on the bench while the rest of the students play the game gray duck? Laughs and minor upsets abound in an enormously popular story starring the one and only Ramona Quimby!

Ramona Quimby, Age 8

Beverly Cleary

• 1982 Newbery honor
• Score: 6.32

Ramona Quimby, one of the most loved characters in children’s fiction, has now reached third grade. At school, she acquires a new teacher, Mrs. Whaley, who addresses the class as “you guys.” At home, she helps the family “squeak by” as her father returns to college to become an art teacher.

All the Quimbys have their ups and downs, but none feels them more intensely than Ramona. Her low point is undoubtedly reached the day she throws up in class and Mrs. Whaley instructs the children to hold their noses and file into the hall. But three days later Ramona…

Ramona's World: Ramona takes on fourth grade!

Beverly Cleary

• 2002 YRCA-Junior nominee
• Score: 4.52

To the delight of Ramona Quimby readers everywhere, Newbery Medal-winning author Beverly Cleary has just made Ramona’s world a little bit bigger.

As she starts the fourth grade, Ramona believes that this year will be “the best year of her life, so far.” She can show off her calluses from swinging on the rings in the park; the boy she calls Yard Ape sits across the aisle from her; her teacher praises her writing; and she has a new baby sister, Roberta. But best of all, she has a new best friend, Daisy.

Little does Ramona know the challenges her…