Friday, June 15, 2018
Ramona the Pest
by Beverly Cleary
You could say this is one of the oldest books in my collection, even though a) I only bought it a few months ago and, b) it was only written in 1968. Ramona the Pest is one of the books I remember having when I was a kid. After reading Beezus and Ramona last year, I told myself I should reread this one. When, months later, I saw this on a clearance rack at Half Price Books, I knew it was an omen. Or maybe just a bargain. Alas, I discovered that it was not as funny as its predecessor. There were plenty of smiles and chuckles, but I think I only came close to laughing out loud once. That said, it still was a fun read. Whoever bought me my first copy of the book, all those years ago, had good taste.
And for some reason (nostalgia?), I'm keeping it on my shelf.
LibraryThing link
You could say this is one of the oldest books in my collection, even though a) I only bought it a few months ago and, b) it was only written in 1968. Ramona the Pest is one of the books I remember having when I was a kid. After reading Beezus and Ramona last year, I told myself I should reread this one. When, months later, I saw this on a clearance rack at Half Price Books, I knew it was an omen. Or maybe just a bargain. Alas, I discovered that it was not as funny as its predecessor. There were plenty of smiles and chuckles, but I think I only came close to laughing out loud once. That said, it still was a fun read. Whoever bought me my first copy of the book, all those years ago, had good taste.
And for some reason (nostalgia?), I'm keeping it on my shelf.
LibraryThing link
Labels: BeverlyCleary, OnMyShelf, Ramona
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
Beezus and Ramona
by Beverly Cleary
I don't review every book I read--some small tomes I'll just run through to kill time, or sate my curiosity, and then never give them a second thought. This was going to be one of those books, until I laughed out loud. What had happened was that I was killing time in my daughter's second grade classroom. (She's a teacher, by the way, not a student.) I noticed this book in the classroom library, and since I had fond memories of reading Ramona the Pest when I was a kid, I figured I'd read a bit of this instead of the book I had in my backpack. Anyway, Beezus and Ramona is about Beezus Quimby, a nine year old girl in 1950s Oregon, and the troubles she has with her four year old sister Ramona. At first I enjoyed reading a book written in the 1950s--a different world in many ways. Soon enough, my enjoyment was garnished with chuckles over Ramona's antics. She is the chaos bringer, the one who manages to see and act in the world in a way that is different from the average person and who is quite disconcerting to those, like Beezus, who expect a certain order to their lives. Anyway, a few chapters in I got to the laugh out loud joke--an incident which revealed to me that not only is Ms. Cleary able to write about crazy shenanigans, but she has a clever wit in her tool kit as well. So from that point, I knew that I wanted to finish reading the book (easily done) and tell you all to check it out.
LibraryThing link
I don't review every book I read--some small tomes I'll just run through to kill time, or sate my curiosity, and then never give them a second thought. This was going to be one of those books, until I laughed out loud. What had happened was that I was killing time in my daughter's second grade classroom. (She's a teacher, by the way, not a student.) I noticed this book in the classroom library, and since I had fond memories of reading Ramona the Pest when I was a kid, I figured I'd read a bit of this instead of the book I had in my backpack. Anyway, Beezus and Ramona is about Beezus Quimby, a nine year old girl in 1950s Oregon, and the troubles she has with her four year old sister Ramona. At first I enjoyed reading a book written in the 1950s--a different world in many ways. Soon enough, my enjoyment was garnished with chuckles over Ramona's antics. She is the chaos bringer, the one who manages to see and act in the world in a way that is different from the average person and who is quite disconcerting to those, like Beezus, who expect a certain order to their lives. Anyway, a few chapters in I got to the laugh out loud joke--an incident which revealed to me that not only is Ms. Cleary able to write about crazy shenanigans, but she has a clever wit in her tool kit as well. So from that point, I knew that I wanted to finish reading the book (easily done) and tell you all to check it out.
LibraryThing link
Labels: BeverlyCleary, CheckItOut, Ramona
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