Ramona+Quimby,+Age+8



Bibliographical Data Ramona Quimby, Age 8 William Morrow, 1981

Interest Level: grades 3 - 5

Reading Level Grade level Equivalent: 3.5 Author: Beverly Cleary Illustrator: Tracy Dockray Publisher: Harper Collins ISBN: 9780807208748

Softcover Price: $4.50 Language: English

Genre: Comedy and Humor, Realistic Fiction, Dictionaries, & Series

Theme/Subject: Elementary School, Family Life, Growing Up, & Pride and Self-Esteem Awards: Newbery Honor Book Award

Summary: With Mr. Quimby going to college and Mrs. Quimby going to work, it's a good thing Ramona is big enough to ride the bus to her new school all by herself. Unfortunately, after school she has to stay with Grandmother Kemp until her moody big sister Beezus comes to pick her up. It's a good thing Ramona is so mature these days: she is doing her best to help Beezus make dinner and to be nice to pesky little Willa Jean after school. She can't help it if Danny — also known as Yard Ape — insists on making her school life difficult. Soon Ramona is living up to her reputation, accidentally squashing a raw egg into her hair at the cafeteria and throwing up in her classroom. She wonders if life will get any easier! This book in the Ramona series is sure to please readers familiar with the previous books and to win new fans.

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Analysis of Literary Elements: <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">The plot development in this story plays an important role. The schools in Ramona Quimby's neighborhood have been reorganized, and now she gets to ride the bus to Cedarhurst Primary, where she and her fellow third graders will be the biggest kids in the school. Ramona is happy about the changes until a boy on the bus steals her new eraser, but she rises to the challenge and ends up deciding the "Yard Ape" may not be so bad, after all. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">The best part of being in third grade is [|Sustained Silent Reading]. Ramona loves getting time to read in school every day. The worst part is that she isn't sure if her teacher, Mrs. Whaley, likes her. When Ramona cracks a hard boiled egg on her head at lunch- and finds out her mother forgot to boil it- she ends up in the secretary's office with a head full of raw egg, where she overhears Mrs. Whaley describe her as a show-off and a nuisance. Even Yard Ape can't make her feel better about that. Things get worse when she throws up in class and her mother has to leave work to take her home. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Then there's the problem of spoiled Willa Jean. Every day after school Howie goes outside to ride bikes with his friends, and Ramona is forced to play baby games with her. Beezus can always say she's busy doing homework, but that doesn't work for Ramona. She strives to use her creativity to find ways to help her family get along.

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Author Biography: <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Beverly Cleary was born in McMinnville, Oregon, and lived on a farm in Yamhill, a town so small it had no library. Her mother arranged with the State Library to have books sent to Yamhill and acted as librarian in a lodge room upstairs over a bank. There, Beverly learned to love books. When the family moved to Portland, where Beverly attended grammar school and high school, she soon found herself in the low reading circle, an experience that has given her sympathy for the problems of struggling readers. By the third grade she had conquered reading and spent much of her childhood either with books or on her way to and from the public library. Before long her school librarian suggested that she write books for children when she grew up. The idea appealed to her, and she decided that someday she would write the books she longed to read, but was unable to find on the library shelves — funny stories about her neighborhood and the sort of children she knew. After graduation from junior college in Ontario, California, and the University of California at Berkeley, Beverly entered the School of Librarianship at the University of Washington, Seattle. There she specialized in library work with children. She was the children's librarian in Yakima, Washington, until she married Clarence Cleary and moved to California. The Clearys are the parents of twins, now grown. Beverly's hobbies are travel and needlework. When children ask Beverly where she finds her ideas, she replies, “From my own experience and from the world around me.” Henry Huggins, written when she was in her early thirties, was her first attempt at writing. Her advice to the many children who write asking for “tips” on writing is for them to read widely while growing up, and when the time comes for them to write, they will find their own way of writing and will not need tips to guide them. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">(source: www.scholastic.com)

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Review:

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">This is phenomenal book. It was one of my favorite books to read as a child. Ramona is a relatable character which the children in elementary school can relate to her. The story provides opportunities for children to make predictions, inferences, and connections (text to self, text to text). What makes this book so great is that it is also a series, so if the children have an interest in this book, they will enjoy reading the other books in the series.

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Online Review:

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Children's Literature online - Laura Ruttig
<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Dockray's charming illustrations update the look of this classic Newbery Honor book from Cleary. In this adventure, Ramona enters third grade, just as her older sister Beatrice (Beezus) begins junior high, and her father returns to college to become a teacher himself. Ramona's irrepressible personality turns the everyday events of her life into escapades of dramatic proportions. Giving a book report to her class becomes a choreographed version of a TV commercial, and eating lunch in the school cafeteria turns into a dangerous event, when her mother accidentally sends a raw egg rather than a hardboiled one in Ramona's lunch. Overhearing her teacher call her a nuisance leads Ramona to soul searching, as she tries to reconcile her teacher's words with her own opinion of herself. Kids may easily identify with Ramona's difficulties, as Cleary depicts this "typical" white American middle-class family with warmth and interest. Cleary tackles the difficult issue of describing a happy family with grace; the Quimby family is far from perfect, and although not poverty-stricken, they are also far from rich. Part of the "Ramona" series. <span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">