The Complete 8-Book Ramona Collection: Beezus and Ramona, Ramona and Her Father, Ramona and Her Mother, Ramona Quimby, Age 8, Ramona Forever, Ramona the Brave, Ramona the Pest, Ramona's World

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Grammar Nazi: Ramona's fourth-grade teacher Mrs. Meacham is obsessive about correct spelling and even dislikes the use of words like "gonna" or "shoulda" in everyday vernacular. One of her favorite sayings is "If you don't pronounce correctly, you can't spell."

Fashion Hurts: Ramona's and Beezus's shoes pinch their feet in Ramona Forever. They find a better use for them. Subverted when it turns out that this was by accident; their mother hadn't realized the girls outgrew their shoes. Appears to have been averted. In Beezus and Ramona, there is a girl named Susan at Ramona's party. In Ramona the Pest, Susan Kushner is introduced, and given that the book and Ramona act like this is the first time they've met, she might not be the same Susan. Not So Above It All: In Ramona And Her Mother Beezus gets one bratty moment by wanting a salon haircut, and has her mother spend an entire day driving to a beauty school where she can get the closest thing. She gets another one in the final chapter of Ramona Quimby, Age 8 when her mother refuses to let her go to Mary Jane's slumber party because the girls stay up too late and Beezus is tired and crabby all the next day, and Beezus slams into her bedroom and throws a tantrum. It's worth remembering that Beezus is 13 or 14 by that point in the series (she begins junior high school in Ramona Quimby, Age 8) and thus has reached the age where girls typically have clashes with their mothers, so although she's no longer the "sweet, sensible" Beezus of the early books in the series, her behavior is still true to life for girls her age. In Beezus and Ramona, when Beezus confesses that there are times when she doesn't love Ramona, she is comforted by her mother and Aunt Beatrice telling her that it's only natural for siblings to feel that way and recounting some of the clashes they had as children.They were also made into the American movie Ramona and Beezus, released on July 23, 2010, starring Joey King as Ramona and Selena Gomez as Beezus. [12] Although the film jumps from book to book, the plot mainly focuses on the seventh book in the series, Ramona Forever. Kudos, Madam Cleary, for reminding me of the wonders of early independent reading. I will pass along this passion to Neo and anyone else I can. A movie, titled Ramona and Beezus, starring Selena Gomez as Beezus and Joey King as Ramona, was made in 2010.

Mutual Envy: Ramona and her sister Beezus have reasons to be jealous of each other. Ramona wishes that adults would respect and admire her like Beezus and say she is "her mother's girl," but Beezus also feels that Ramona can get away with everything since she is the baby of the family. The Scapegoat: A big part of Ramona's dislike for Willa Jean comes from the fact that no matter what kind of bratty things Willa Jean does, Mrs. Kemp always blames Ramona for them because she's older and "should have stopped her". Meaningful Echo: Kindergarten-age Ramona, who has just learned about Show and Tell, asks what Beezus is taking for her Show and Tell. Beezus informs her that older kids don't have Show and Tell. Two years later, Ramona gets in trouble for taking her pajamas to school, and Beezus suggests she might have taken them for Show and Tell. Ramona mentally grumbles that Beezus is just trying to make her look silly, as she knows perfectly well that second-graders don't have Show and Tell. DeLyser, Dydia Y. (2005). Ramona Memories: Tourism and the Shaping of Southern California. University Of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-8166-4572-8.

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I’ve had Beverly Cleary on my mind for a while now ever since NPR did a story about her (as of this writing, she is 103 years old!), so it suddenly seemed ideal to take a break in the middle of the dystopian novel I’m reading and turn to the gentle adventures of Ramona Quimby and her long-suffering older sister, Beezus.

Precocious Crush: Beezus gets one on her sixth-grade teacher. Ramona ends up meeting him when she has to borrow a stapler, immediately takes a liking to him because he treats her like a real person, and decides she'd probably have one on him too if she were in his class. Bratty Half-Pint: Willa Jean, Howie's little sister, who is four years younger than Ramona and Howie. Both Ramona and Howie can't stand her, and especially the fact that Willa Jean never seems to get in trouble for the things she does. Or the fact that Ramona is blamed when Willa Jean does something wrong because supposedly looking after a bratty little kid is another kid's job. She does, however, get a lot better in Ramona Forever (the last book she appeared in). Ramona, however, wasn't too different from her when she was Willa Jean's age. As noted under Lost Wedding Ring, Ramona finds the ring, but because she was told to sit still and be quiet, she has a moment of To Be Lawful or Good, wondering if she'd get in trouble for speaking up. Many American migrants to California were biased against the Mexicans who lived there. The new settlers from northern and midwestern states disparaged what they considered a decadent culture of leisure and recreation among the elite Latinos, who held huge tracts of land, lived in a region with prevailing mild weather and unusually fertile soil, and relied heavily on Native American laborers. The new settlers favored the Protestant work ethic. This view was not universal, however. Wake-Up Call Boss: While Ramona, like any other child, feels that grown-ups are often unfair in their rules because she doesn't understand why those rules are in place, Mrs. Griggs represents Ramona's first realization that some authority figures are genuinely unfair and that life in itself isn't always fair. Mrs. Griggs is also the first time in her life that Ramona has had to deal with a stern and coldly indifferent authority figure, in contrast to the warm understanding of her parents and Miss Binney. Her parents are sympathetic enough to her complaints about Mrs. Griggs to question Beezus about her experiences with the teacher, but point out to Ramona that many of Mrs. Griggs's observations are fair ones (with regards to Ramona's problems with self-control). They also point out that part of growing up is learning how to deal constructively with people you do not get along with. This proves to be a turning point for Ramona, as she takes her parents' advice to heart and develops much better self-control in school.

Gift-Giving Gaffe: Uncle Hobart, apparently not knowing a lot about kids, gives Willa Jean an accordion that she couldn't possibly learn how to play until she's much older. Not surprisingly, she breaks it within less than an hour. Because of the novel's extraordinary popularity, public perception merged fact and fiction. California historian Walton Bean wrote: In Ramona Quimby, Age 8, it is stated that Ramona and her fellow third graders are the oldest kids at her new school. However, in Ramona's World she enters fourth grade at the same school. It's also explicitly stated that Ramona's teacher, Mrs. Meachem, has been teaching fourth grade there long enough to have had some of her current students' parents in her class (ruling out the possibility that the school just added a grade over the summer).

Roberta Quimby: Beezus and Ramona's baby sister, who is born at the end of Ramona Forever. Ramona is jealous that Roberta has all her parents' attention, but at the end of "Ramona's World" learns to love her sister. Her middle name is Day. This is the only book in the series written from older sister Beezus' point of view. In the book, Beezus is struggling with her feelings for her annoying younger sister Ramona. Cleary's Ramona books have been adapted for Canadian television as Ramona. The 10-part Canadian television series starred Sarah Polley as Ramona and Lori Chodos as Beezus. [11] Sadist Teacher: Ramona's first-grade teacher Mrs. Griggs. It's not entirely clear whether she dislikes Ramona personally or is just an unfriendly person, but she does deliberately embarrass Ramona in front of the class a few times. Then again, Mrs. Griggs was also Beezus's first-grade teacher, and Beezus got along with her just fine; she says that Mrs. Griggs wasn't a very exciting teacher, but she wasn't mean either. Beezus also says, "I was the kind of child she liked. You know... neat and dependable." This seems to suggest that Ramona's problems with Mrs. Griggs are the result of a personality clash. That said, Mrs. Griggs has some 'nice' moments at the end when she sympathizes with Ramona losing her shoe after an encounter with a mean dog, and compliments the paper slipper she made as a substitute.

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The corresponding episode of the 1988 TV series changed the Alka-Seltzer reference to one more familiar to '80s kids: "Mikey Likes It!" for Life cereal. It also averts the Bland-Name Product trope with regard to the cat food, as the Purina Cat Chow bag is clearly visible while Ramona watches the commercial. Beezus could not help feeling annoyed. Miss Robbins was letting Ramona stay in the class—the one place where she was never allowed to tag along! Miss Robbins would probably like her painting, because it would be so full of imagination. Ramona’s pictures, in fact, were so full of imagination that it took even more imagination to tell what they were. Eskimos Aren't Real: Played with but ultimately averted in Ramona Forever. Ramona tells her family about Howie's rich uncle, who has been traveling in what sounds like a made-up country — Saudi Arabia. Ramona the Pest, like the remaining books in the series, is written from Ramona's point of view. In Ramona the Pest Ramona enters kindergarten. The succeeding books follow her as she grows up and advances through school, usually at the rate of one grade over two books. Written from the 1950s through the 1990s, dates aren't mentioned in the books, and the children are designed to appeal to real children in any time period. The last Ramona book, Ramona's World, was published in 1999, 15 years after the previous one. Generation Xerox: Mrs. Quimby and her sister Beatrice were just like Beezus and Ramona when they were young girls, with Dorothy being the responsible older sister and Beatrice being the annoying younger sister.