Beverly Cleary Quotes
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Children should learn that reading is pleasure, not just something that teachers make you do in school.
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I read my books aloud before they were published.
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I just wrote about childhood as I had known it.
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I was a very observant child. The boys in my books are based on boys in my neighborhood growing up.
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I know that when I was a children's librarian, that was about 1940, boys particularly asked where were the books about kids like us, and there weren't any at that time.
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I wrote books to entertain. I'm not trying to teach anything! If I suspected the author was trying to show me how to be a better behaved girl, I shut the book.
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Writers are good at plucking out what they need here and there.
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I have lovely memories of Los Angeles in the 1930s. I came down to live with my mother's cousin and they invited me to come and go to junior college for a year.
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I don't ever go on the Internet. I don't even know how it works.
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I was a librarian.
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We didn't have television in those days, and many people didn't even have radios. My mother would read aloud to my father and me in the evening.
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I wanted to be a ballerina. I changed my mind.
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Otis was inspired by a boy who sat across the aisle from me in sixth grade. He was a lively person. My best friend appears in assorted books in various disguises.
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Quite often somebody will say, What year do your books take place? and the only answer I can give is, In childhood.
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I like to read, walk, cook, and travel to cities. We live in the country, so we miss museums and the bustle of city life.
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I think the best teachers had a real interest in the subject they were teaching and a love for children.
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People are usually surprised to hear this, but I don't really read children's books.
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I had a very wise mother. She always kept books that were my grade level in our house.
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In 50 years, the world has changed, especially for kids, but kids' needs haven't changed. They still need to feel safe, be close to their families, like their teachers, and have friends to play with.
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Over the years, I have been approached about making Ramona into a cartoon or movie, but I was afraid that no one could really capture the spunky character of Ramona.
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What interests me is what children go through while growing up.
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I think the best teachers had a real interest in the subject they were teaching and a love for children. Some of the teachers were just doing their job, but others had that little extra. They really cared about children and they wore pretty dresses.
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When I was in the first grade I was afraid of the teacher and had a miserable time in the reading circle, a difficulty that was overcome by the loving patience of my second grade teacher. Even though I could read, I refused to do so.
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One rainy Sunday when I was in the third grade, I picked up a book to look at the pictures and discovered that even though I did not want to, I was reading. I have been a reader ever since.