Happy 100th, Beverly Cleary

beverlycleary

Children’s author Beverly Cleary, writer of more than 30 books, many starring Ramona and Beezus Quimby and their friends, turns 100 today.

She was born Beverly Bunn in McMinnville, Oregon, on April 12, 1916. When her family moved to Portland, a school librarian encouraged her to write. She attended Chaffey Junior College, on the Chaffey High campus in Ontario, during the Depression, from 1934 to 1936, because tuition was free. She boarded the first year at 328 Princeton St. and her sophomore year worked at the Ontario Public Library.

That was the end of her time here, but she memorialized that time, and more of her early life, in her 1995 memoir, “My Own Two Feet.”

The Washington Post interviewed Cleary in mid-March and she sounds sharp and in good spirits. She spends her days reading the newspaper and books. Today she plans to have carrot cake in a low-key event at her retirement home in Carmel.

Her publisher promotes April 12 as Drop Everything and Read Day, although this year they’re making an entire month out of it.

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