Author of ramona and beezus5/20/2023 ![]() ![]() Cleary was never an adult trying to affect a child’s-eye view or, worse, an adult disguising her own set of ideals for children within the point of view of a counterfeit child character. That an accident of family life should bring external social problems on the household is exactly the kind of thing that has people still reading Ramona books. Ramona, we’re told, couldn’t pronounce Beatrice, so the older daughter has been Beezus to the family since Ramona was old enough to lisp it out. I believe this is why my teacher started us here in the Ramona oeuvre: to defuse the problem for us immediately, a courtesy Beverly Cleary (who died last month just shy of 95) also does her audience with the scene.īeezus is not Ramona’s sister’s real name. In my Lutheran school, where the name of Jesus was always present, a name like Beezus would have been a real distraction. The boys were making a joke of Beezus’s name, which, uncomfortably, rhymes with Jesus. Ramona the Brave opens with Beezus, Ramona’s older sister, scandalized that Ramona has preached a sermon to some boys on the playground. ![]() But environmentally, the decision made sense. My teacher introduced her to the class via Ramona the Brave-maybe a strange choice, since Ramona is a lowly first grader in that volume of her story. ![]()
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