Beverly Cleary

The award-winning children’s author wrote more than 40 books for young readers, among them a trilogy about Ralph S. Mouse, a motorcycle-riding mouse and “Dear Mr. Henshaw,” a work that focused on a child dealing with his parents’ divorce and the letters he writes to his favorite author. “Dear Mr. Henshaw” won Cleary the 1984 Newbery Medal. She also penned several picture books and shared the story of her early life in two autobiographies: “A Girl from Yamhill” and “My Own Two Feet.”

Cleary was born on April 12, 1916, in McMinnville, Oregon, and lived on a farm in Yamhill until her family moved to Portland when she was school-age.

At a young age, Cleary was a slow reader, which she blamed on illness and a mean-spirited first-grade teacher who disciplined her by snapping a steel-tipped pointer across the back of her hands. But by the sixth or seventh grade, Cleary said she was going to write children’s stories.

Cleary would graduate from junior college in Ontario, California, followed by the University of California at Berkeley, where she met her husband, Clarence. They married in 1940; Clarence died in 2004. They were the parents of twins, a boy and a girl born in 1955, which inspired her book “Mitch and Amy.”

Cleary also studied library science at the University of Washington and worked as the children’s librarian at Yakima, Washington. She was also post librarian at the Oakland Army Hospital during World War II.

Cleary didn’t start writing books until her early 30s when she wrote “Henry Huggins,” which was published in 1950. Children around the world loved the adventures of Higgins and his neighbors on Klickitat Street – a real street in Portland where Cleary spent much of her youth.

From the Huggins series, Cleary developed perhaps her best-known character: Ramona Quimby. In all, she wrote eight books on Ramona from 1955 to 1999. In 1981, “Ramona and Her Mother” won the National Book Award. “Ramona and Her Father” in 1978 and “Ramona Quimby, Age 8” in 1982 were also named Newbery Honor Books.

Her beloved children’s books have been translated into more than a dozen languages and inspired international television programs based on the Henry Huggins series in Japan, Holland and Sweden.

When Cleary was asked who her favorite character was, she replied, “Does your mother have a favorite child?”

In 2000 she was named a Living Legend by the Library of Congress, and in 2003 was chosen as one of the winners of the National Medal of Arts.

Cleary is survived by her children, Marianne and Malcolm, three grandchildren and a great-grandchild.