"Ask Beverly Cleary" Transcript

Have you ever wanted to ask author Beverly Cleary a question about her much-loved books, the vivid characters she created, or her life as a writer?

Reading Rockets and our partners at Harper Collins Children's Books asked parents, teachers and kids to submit their questions in honor of the 2008 Drop Everything and Read Day, celebrated on April 12th - Mrs. Cleary's birthday. It's a day that encourages families to spend time together reading, a fitting tribute to one of our most beloved writers of children's books. We received more than 500 thought-provoking questions and selected about a baker's dozen for Mrs. Cleary to answer.

Grab a comfortable seat and listen in to this exclusive interview with Beverly Cleary.

Interviewer: This is from Abby, and she writes: "Mrs. Cleary, I'm wondering if you ever cut the arm off of one of your teddy bears to see if there were bones inside."

Mrs. Cleary: No, I never did. But I was curious to know about what was inside my teddy bear, and I squished it a lot, and I also loved it, and finally all of the fur came off, and then I was down to cloth, and finally there was a little rip, and I saw what was inside my teddy bear, which is a thing called excelsior, which is fine wood shavings that used to be used for packing. And they packed my teddy bear with it.

Interviewer: What happened then? Did you sew it back up?

Mrs. Cleary: No, I think we moved, and strangely, my teddy bear disappeared. I've often suspected my mother, because poor Teddy was pretty ratty by then.

Interviewer: You moved on, and so did Teddy Bear. Did he have a name?

Mrs. Cleary: No, just my bear.

Interviewer: A question from Janet. "Would you please describe Ramona's great big, noisy fuss? What type of sounds did you imagine that she made? What movements accompanied her fuss?"

Mrs. Cleary: Well, the sounds were probably whatever fitted the occasion. No I won't, I don't want to, something like that. And the movements would be kicking her feet against whatever she was sitting on: the floor, the couch, or turning and kicking against the wall.

Interviewer: Next question is from HJ, from Smiley Middle School. Here is HJ's question: "Is it a compliment to tell someone they remind you of Ramona, or not? Thanks."

Mrs. Cleary: I think it's a compliment. Ramona is basically a good kid. She's lively, and she has imagination, but sometimes she doesn't understand the world around her, or what is more uncomfortable, the world doesn't understand her.

Interviewer: This question is from Jane. "Can you tell us what happened to some of your characters when they grew up? And which book would you choose to read on Drop Everything and Read Day?"

Mrs. Cleary: Well, Henry Huggins probably grew up to be a very nice man with a family, and he probably taught school, or something that was orderly. Beezus probably became a nurse, or a teacher, and Ramona had a hard time deciding what she was going to be. She probably experimented, and tried different occupations. Maybe she took time off and went backpacking. I don't know, I haven't written the book, so I don't know. For Drop Everything and Read Day, I would read whatever happened to be on my coffee table at the moment, and my coffee table is usually piled with books.

Interviewer: Next question is from Caren, who is a PTA parent. "I really enjoyed hearing my mother read the Ramona series to me and my sisters when we were children. We always remembered Ramona the Pest. What were some of your favorite books to read to your children?"

Mrs. Cleary: Well, when they were little, my daughter's favorite book was Beady Bear, by Don Freeman. And my son's favorite was Andy and the Lion, I don't recall the author. And when they were a little older, I read Grimm's Fairy Tales, the edition by Wanda Gag, which had been told to her by her grandmother, and they read so easily. My children did not like Hans Christian Andersen. I don't know, they just didn't want to listen to him. And when they were older, my son loved the William Penn Dubois stories, Twenty-One Balloons, and some of the others, and my daughter, of course, loved Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Interviewer: Connor is the person who wrote the next question, and she's in Mrs. Huff's fourth grade class. And she writes, "I'm in fourth grade. We write lots of stories in our class. Do you remember any stories you wrote as a kid? Did you turn any of those stories into a book?"

Mrs. Cleary: This may surprise you, but I didn't really write stories as a kid. I always enjoyed school assignments that were creative, but wasn't one to write stories as a child. One of life's lessons that I did learn was "do it." Because I entered contests and won prizes because nobody else entered the contest. And when I was in the eighth grade, we had a teacher who was a little more creative than the others had been, and she told us to write something pretending that we were at Valley Forge with George Washington's troops. And the class moaned and groaned, but I had a good time writing about how I had sacrificed my pet chicken for the starving troops. And the teacher read my story, and said I didn't have to do mine over, but the rest of the class had to rewrite their stories. Well, they wrote about sacrificing their pet calves, and sheep… and I sat there looking smug.

Interviewer: Question is from Andrea. "My question isn't earth-shattering or anything, but I wonder what advice you have for teachers trying to encourage young children to become writers? You have stated in your interview that you loved reading, but didn't like to answer the questions after each story. You wanted to read for fun. You have attributed your love of reading to the reading aloud your mom did every evening for the family, but you didn't say much about where your love of writing came from. I think we take the fun out of writing the same way… the same way most take the fun out of reading, and I wonder what you think about that."

Mrs. Cleary: I get desperate letters from children, saying that they are supposed to write a story for school, and they can't do it. I think it's unreasonable to expect children to write stories. I think it would be much better if they were assigned parts of stories - an argument between a brother and a sister, or what they wished they… had when they blow out candles on their birthday cake. Something connected with their lives, but not a story. Stories are hard work. I couldn't do it till I was in my early 30's.

Interviewer: "Dear Mrs. Cleary: What do you snack on while writing? Do you like cheese while writing books? Sincerely, Mary, age 10, 5th grade."

Mrs. Cleary: No, I don't snack on anything. If I am engrossed in the story that I'm working on, I write on and on and sometimes even forget mealtimes. I just have no appetite when I'm writing. But of course, when I finish whatever it is, I make up for it.

Interviewer: Myla, from Edgely Public School, writes, "Has anyone ever tried to turn your stories into movies?"

Mrs. Cleary: Oh, yes. There have been two plays based on the Ramona series, that are performed around the country. They're published by a company that publishes stories for children to perform. And I have seen it, and I enjoy it when the children are performing it, but I've also seen tapes of adults performing children, and I don't care for that. Adults are not children.

The Mouse and the Motorcycle was made into a movie, and I thought it was really great. And it still turns up on television from time to time. The Ramona books were made into a series, by PBS. It was made in Canada, and I thought it turned out very well, but it hasn't been shown for years.

Interviewer: And you played a part in reworking the script from the book, did you not?

Mrs. Cleary: Yes, yes, I did. I changed a lot of the dialogue, and right now there's a movie in the works.

Interviewer: Oooh!

Mrs. Cleary: But I don't know when that will be finished.

Interviewer: And this is a movie around a particular book, or a series?

Mrs. Cleary: It's a book about the character of Ramona. They're taking bits from different books, and I hope it will be finished before long.

Interviewer: Chris from Indialantic Elementary writes, "Hello. I teach 3rd grade in Indialantic, Florida. You are the subject of our author study this month, and the kids have some questions for you. Do you ever laugh at your own books? In other words, thinking they are funny."

Mrs. Cleary: Well, of course I laugh at my own books. If I didn't think they were funny, why would anybody else think they were funny? One thing I have learned about writing is, never try to be funny. It should just come. But if I find myself trying to be funny, it falls flat. It goes right into the wastebasket.

Interviewer: In Ramona Quimby, Age 8, where did you get the idea that Ramona's dad had to draw his foot for art class?

Mrs. Cleary: Well, I had a friend who was an artist, and she once told me that her very first assignment in art school was drawing her foot. A very sensible assignment, because you don't have to have a model, you just put your foot out, and draw it. And I think feet are hard to draw.

Interviewer: How old were you when you wrote your first book?

Mrs. Cleary: I was in my early 30's. I was always going to write a book. Lots of people are always going to write a book, but I didn't do anything about it, and so I said, "Okay, if you're going to write a book, sit down and do it. Don't just talk about it or think about it." And so I sat down, thinking I would write a book about a girl, and I found myself thinking of the little boys in Yakima, Washington, where I was children's librarian, and there was very little to offer little boys. And one little boy said to me, "Where are books about kids like us?" And that all came back to me as I was starting to write a book about a girl, and I got to thinking about the boys in my own neighborhood where I grew up, and that was the beginning of Henry Huggins.

Interviewer: What made you think of a mouse as a character for the Ralph books?

Mrs. Cleary: I was never a mouse. We were traveling in England with our 9-year-old twins, when our son was ill, and had to stay in bed for several days. And to amuse him, we went out and bought some miniature cars, and a miniature motorcycle. And he ran them up and down the stripes of his bedspread, and seemed to be lost in some fantasy of his own. Then when we came home, the neighbor called me over to see a mouse that had fallen into a bucket in her garden. And the thought crossed my mind that that mouse was just the right size to ride the little motorcycle we had brought from England. And that was the beginning of The Mouse & the Motorcycle.

Interviewer: What do you like to do when you're not writing?

Mrs. Cleary: Well, I like to read. Now that I'm in my 90s, I don't do much of anything. I just fiddle around.

Interviewer: Sherri, from St. Cornelius School, who's a classroom teacher, writes: "One of my students asked, how do you keep on being young and silly at your age, when everyone around you is not? And what do you tell people when they tell you to act your age and write something old and serious?"

Mrs. Cleary: Well, nobody has ever asked me to write something old and serious. I think of myself as a serious person with a sense of humor. However, Dear Mr. Henshaw, probably as close to a serious book as I have written. And that came about because two boys in different parts of the country, they didn't know one another, at the same time, wrote and asked, why didn't I write about a boy whose parents were divorced? And that was the beginning of Dear Mr. Henshaw. It's entirely imaginary, although the setting is Pacific Grove, in California. And I had received many letters from boys, so I found it easy to write like a boy. And the book just seemed to write itself. And it's been doing very well ever since. The Girl from Yamhill and My Own Two Feet, the volumes of autobiography, are both serious and funny. But that's what I think life is. It's both serious and funny.

Interviewer: This is from Sharon: "Over the past 50 years that you have been writing books, what, in your opinion, have been the most significant changes in our world, and how have you reflected these changes in your life?"

Mrs. Cleary: Well, the world has obviously become a more dangerous place. When I write about a specific neighborhood, the one in which I grew up, and which I visit occasionally, and it really seems to have changed very little, except the houses now have TV aerials, there are cars parked in the street, and school buses come around the neighborhood. And actually, it looks better than it did when I was growing up, because it's a more prosperous time, and people can afford to paint their houses and take care of their shrubbery. And it's a very pleasant neighborhood. I'm lucky to have grown up there.

Interviewer: Next one is from Becky, from Durfee Magnet School. "If you were to magically turn into one of your characters, which one would it be and why?"

Mrs. Cleary: I think I've already been my characters, except for The Mouse and the Motorcycle, and the boy in Dear Mr. Henshaw. No, I think I really am all my characters. I think most authors are.

Interviewer: Our last question is from Chris, Frost Elementary School, Mesa, Arizona: "Dear Mrs. Cleary, what would you do if you were a kid again? Thanks! Age 12, 5th grade."

Mrs. Cleary: I would probably do exactly the same thing that I did when I was a child. I did the best I could with whatever situation I found myself in. I wanted to write books, and so I grew up and wrote books. And if I were a kid, I'd probably still want to write books, and grow up and write them.v

Interviewer: Thank you for taking time with us today, Mrs. Cleary, and answering the reader's questions. Is there anything left that you would like to say to those who are learning to read and learning to write?

Mrs. Cleary: Well, I think, like many things in life, it will become easier as you grow older, and one of the most wonderful discoveries you can make in your whole life is that reading is a pleasure, not just something you have to do in school.

Interviewer: Thank you.