Ramona the Pest

I love that this book makes you feel like you are right there getting to know the characters. The author does a great job describing their actions and personalities and makes you fall in love with them. Even though this is a book for kids, as an adult, I wanted to finish reading it after I had read the first page. It is hilarious in a fun, not silly, way.

Departing from the surreal is Ramona, the antihero-turned-hero of Beverly Cleary’s Beezus and Ramona series.

Ramona is an entirely realistic child who is filled with passionate desires and intense feelings, all of which she acts on, even when she knows better. The interesting thing about these books is that Ramona was introduced as a foil and annoyance to her long-suffering older sister, Beezus.

But anyone with blood in their veins would find Ramona preferable to Beezus, and so, clearly, did Beverly Cleary, who switched her focus from color-inside-the-lines Beezus to wild Ramona with her varying confusions and longings—such as her… show more.