She was awarded the National Book Award for children’s fiction in 1981 for “Ramona and Her Mother,” and in 1975, she won the American Library Association’s Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for “a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children.” Her books featuring Henry Huggins, his dog, Ribsy, and the children on Klickitat Street that included Beezus and her younger sister, Ramona found a large audience with young readers. According to HarperCollins, Cleary’s dream of writing for children was rekindled when “a little boy faced me rather ferociously across the circulation desk and said: ‘Where are the books about kids like us?’” The advice stuck with her through her studies at what’s now Chaffey College in California, the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Washington in Seattle, where she studied librarianship.Īt Berkeley, she met her husband, Clarence Cleary, and the two were married in 1940.Īfter college, she worked as a children’s librarian until she began to write.

When the Bunn family moved to Portland, Oregon, a school librarian encouraged young Beverly to write children’s books. Mouse, as true friends who helped shape their growing-up years,” Murphy said.Ĭleary was born Beverly Bunn in McMinnville, Oregon, on April 12, 1916, and spent her early years on a farm in the nearby town of Yamhill. “Looking back, she’d often say, ‘I’ve had a lucky life,’ and generations of children count themselves lucky too - lucky to have the very real characters Beverly Cleary created, including Henry Huggins, Ramona and Beezus Quimby, and Ralph S. “We are saddened by the passing of Beverly Cleary, one of the most beloved children’s authors of all time,” said HarperCollins Children’s Books President Suzanne Murphy in the company’s news release about Cleary’s death.

Ramona and her mother