What I'm Reading

When I stopped to think about it Beverly Cleary was the writer who had the earliest and most foundational impact on my own writing. Through reading her books over and over again (this is just a small sample, all of them wouldn't fit in one picture!) I learned the art of simple sentences and also how to get deep inside your character's mind so while Ramona took my hand and led me down Klicktitat Street I was both next to her and inside her head. I never needed to empty an entire toothpaste tube into the sink because Ramona had done it for me. Beverly died yesterday which makes me sad, not because she hadn't had a good long life, she did, she was 104 but because for my whole life we were alive at the same time. I read her autobiography for the first time yesterday and saw glimmerings of her future heroines, especially Emily. Ramona was my favourite but like Beverly I was a good little girl who preferred to read about mischief than do it herself. At the end is Socks, one of her unsung masterpieces, one of the best books about cats I've ever read. A Girl From Yamhill is darker than I expected the writer of those books to be but it was good to know her even if it was on the day she died. The world is now without Beverly Cleary but you know, the nice thing about writers is that she'll live forever and influence a hundred other little girls searching for themselves in the books they read. #beverlycleary #ramonathepest #agirlfromyamhill #bookstagram #emilysrunawayimagination #mrmbookclub #tribute