Fifth Grade
Worksheets
Beverly Cleary
Ramona Quimby. Henry Huggins. Ralph S. Mouse. They are all characters in books. Even though they aren't real, a lot of kids feel like they know them. Beverly Cleary created them all. Her goal as an author was to write books about the way that kids really are. She wanted her characters to be funny. She wanted them to be creative. She wanted to write about kids that were always busy doing, building, or inventing! Those were the kind of kids that she knew.
Beverly Cleary was born in Oregon in 1916. She was born as Beverly Bunn. She didn't become Beverly Cleary until she got married. When she was very young, Beverly's family lived on a farm. The town where she lived was very small. Beverly didn't have other kids nearby to play with. The town didn't even have a library. Beverly's parents decided to move to Portland when Beverly was ready to start school. Portland was a much bigger city. It had good schools. There would be a lot of children close by for Beverly to play with. There were many things to do there.
When Beverly started school, she was put in a low reading group. She had trouble reading and it was a lot of work for her. Beverly tried hard, though. By the third grade, she had become a good reader. All of her hard work had also taught her to love reading. Beverly spent a lot of her time reading. The rest of her time was spent traveling to and from the public library. Even though she enjoyed reading, Beverly couldn't find the kind of books that she wanted to read. She wanted to read funny stories. She wanted to read about a neighborhood like hers and the sort of kids that she knew. Beverly's school librarian said that she should become a writer. She told her to write the kind of books that she wanted to read. It sounded like a good idea. Beverly made a promise to herself that one day she would write books for kids.
