I. Introduction--description of the state of the domain of children's literature
II. Meet Beverly Cleary, visual and verbal prodigy--highlighted by her child-like mind
III. Thesis
IV. Characteristics of Child-like Mind:
A. Being a serious child and a playful adult equals success
B. Spontaneous, imaginative mind that identifies with kids and their emotions
1. Playful and real
2. Uses kids' language and humor
3. Captures true emotions like horror
C. Adapts successfully:
1. How she adapted
2. Why it was important
V. Conclusion

"Bob lived on a big farm. Everyone has to learn to work on a big farm. Bob helped his father with the work. He learned to help with the corn. He learned to look after the chickens and the sheep and the cows. He learned always to shut the gate to the pasture where Tony, the big black bull, lived" (Dolch 1).

In the late 1940's and early 1950's, post-World War II, there was a shift back to domestic interests. Both libraries and bookstores were increasing in frequency and popularity, attracting education-minded families on the weekends and after school. However, children visited these institutions often to find merely stuffy stories about prim and proper children without any realistic emotions. "Where are the books about kids like us?" one librarian recalls being asked repeatedly. There simply were none. Hungry minds looking for empathy and adventure found emptiness; anyone not bored by Bob's story, found in a 1954 children's anthology, probably wished him to be mauled by Tony, the big black bull. Kids were often left with moral-laden Little Golden Books such as the 1950 edition of Susie's New Stove:

"'Carol is bringing her dolls here to play,' said Susie. 'May I ask her to stay for lunch? We could cook it on my little stove.'
'Of course,' said Mother. 'Let's see. You could have canned soup with toasted crackers and cheese. Then peanut butter and honey sandwiches with milk. And how would you like to make candle salads? They are quite grownup'
'Wonderful,' said Susie. 'I will ask her right away.'
And soon she was back with Carol...

'Daddy's birthday is coming,' said Mike. 'What can we give him?'
'I wish we could cook him a birthday dinner,' said Susie.
'That would be lovely,' said Mother.
'Oh, but our pots and pans are so tiny,' said Susie. 'We could never feed you and Daddy.'
'And us too,' said Mike. 'We would eat at the birthday dinner, wouldn't we?'
'Of course, dear,' said Mother. 'It would not be a party without you. But we can manage. You two are such good cooks now, I will let you cook on my big stove just this once...

'My,' said Mother. 'You children are a great help to me. This will be a wonderful birthday dinner.'
It was, too. Daddy said it was the best meal he had ever eaten in his whole life" (Bedford 14).

Needless to say, this story wouldn't have encouraged many young boys to read, nor would it have expanded too many girls' minds. It was a skeleton of a story, devoid of any childhood emotions besides joy. Such a story line was condescending to its young readers, skimping on depth that they would not only have understood but also enjoyed. The brevity of these books failed to challenge young people. However, besides "Dick, Jane and Spot," there were not many other options for children who wanted to read about other children; the domain of young people's literature was in desperate need of a change.

Enter Beverly Cleary.

"The morning is chilly. Mother and I wear sweaters as I follow her around the big old house. Suddenly bells begin to ring, the bells of Yamhill's three churches and the fire bell. Mother seizes my hand and begins to run, out of the house, down the steps, across the muddy barnyard toward the barn where my father is working. My short legs cannot keep up. I trip, stumble, and fall, tearing holes in the knees of my long brown cotton stockings, skinning my knees.
'You must never, never forget this day as long as you live,' Mother tells me as Father comes running out of the barn to meet us.
Years later, I asked Mother what was so important about that day when all the bells in Yamhill rang, the day I was never to forget. She looked at me in astonishment and said, 'Why, that was the end of the First World War.' I was two years old at the time" (Cleary, A Girl from Yamhill 6).

Beverly Cleary was a visual prodigy. Born on April 12, 1916, she grew up with her protective but aloof parents on their farm in Yamhill, and then Portland, Oregon. Intensely watchful, she remembered virtually every sensory image with which she was presented, such as the one above, much like renowned writer T.S. Eliot. As described in Howard Gardner's ground-breaking analysis of seven different types of creativity, Creating Minds, "[Eliot] was entranced by sensory impressions--smells, noises, sights...Even more unusual was Eliot's capacity to remember them vividly even decades later in lines of poetry" (Gardner 229). Young Beverly developed in much the same way, defining herself early on as a unique and creative individual, using these images for literature later in life. Today, Cleary's thirty-seven books, constructed heavily from her absorbed impressions as a child, have sold seventy-five million copies in twenty countries and are translated into fourteen different languages. In 1984 she won the Newberry Medal for her book Dear Mr. Henshaw, and is now also the winner of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for her contribution to children's literature. Cleary was destined to become a prodigious writer; however, many people--even other visual prodigies who used their impressions to become verbal virtuosos--have not left such a lasting mark on their domains. What made Beverly Cleary capable of changing and vastly improving her domain of children's literature above others? She had a unique, multifaceted asset: her child-like mind.

Beverly Cleary was a serious child, listening curiously to adult interaction and watching closely the chicken-filled farm around her. She grew into an adult who, filled to the brim with observation, understood fully the immature perspective of young people; because she did, she had a spontaneous, imaginative mind that identified with children and their emotions. Also child-like was her ability to adapt in her domain as the decades passed, similarly to the way children evolve for their changing environments while growing up. Because Cleary had a mind that reflected those of her youthful readers, she became a vital creative catalyst to the domain of children's literature for fifty years.

"Picasso once quipped, 'When I was their age I could draw like Raphael, but it has taken me a whole lifetime to learn to draw like them'" (Gardner 145). In an interesting parallel, Beverly Cleary also thought like an adult as a child, but as an adult became in touch with children's immaturity. This is an aspect, since it is shared with notoriously youthful-minded Picasso, that seems to be characteristic of child-like prodigies. Feeling unnaturally mature and therefore noticing extraordinary details as a child, then becoming in tune with the "child within" as an adult, seems to be a mix for success. Cleary was, unlike other children, enthralled by adult conversation. "Being seen and not heard, I gleaned all sorts of interesting information...A woman had been heard to say, 'I just love to knead bread. It cleans the hands so.' The ladies clucked like hens and vowed they would never eat any of her bread...Sometimes the most interesting and mysterious conversations ended when Mother shot a glance at me and said, 'Little pitchers have big ears.' The ladies' sudden silence was insulting. I was not a pitcher, and I did not have big ears" (Cleary, A Girl from Yamhill 38). The details Cleary observed allowed her to create the complex perspective of children in her stories, blending early maturity with a child-like understanding that she had as an adult. For example, by listening to parental discourse and keenly observing the world around her, she was very aware of her family's finances growing up: "My parents scraped up enough--or, as Mother said, 'made sacrifices'--to send me to camp" (Cleary, A Girl from Yamhill 129). In Ramona the Pest, Cleary takes these mature understandings and translates them into the immature perspective of little Ramona, whose parents do not have a lot of money for extravagances. Her mother tells her, "You have a new raincoat. Boots cost money, and Howie's old boots are perfectly good" (Cleary 103). Ramona "shook her head and looked sadly and longingly at a row of beautiful shiny girls' boots displayed on one side of the store. There she sat with Howie's dingy old brown boots beside her" (Cleary 109). Ramona wanted to hop and prance in brand new boots like the other children had in her kindergarten class--practicality meant nothing to her. Cleary knew how a child, when faced with strict monetary boundaries, feels; she understood the gravity of the situation as a child, and as an adult could express it successfully in colorful, sympathetic, child-like terms.

"Funny was Mary Ann's dog and Mary Ann was only three years old. One day, when Mary Ann was only two years old, Father gave her a puppy. It was long and had reddish hair, a long nose, and long tail. Father put the puppy on the floor. Then Mary Ann saw that it had four little short legs. Mary Ann jumped up and down and laughed and laughed. 'Funny, funny doggie,' she cried. And that was how Funny got his name"(Dolch 21).

Beverly Cleary, unlike many children's writers during this post-war period, had an ability to be spontaneous and imaginative, and therefore could identify with children and their emotions--enabling her to portray them realistically. Her characters would not be caught babbling mindlessly about funny dogs and laughing as if excitement is the only state of mind they possess. As an adult, Beverly Cleary still loved to play games like "Statues" on lawns, and rejoiced in singing imaginative songs like the one she had sung with girlfriends in college:

Ta-rootity-too, ta-rootity-toot!
We are the girls from the institute.
We do not smoke, we do not chew,
We do not do what the other girls do! (Cleary, On My Own 103)

For this reason, she appealed to young readers by making her characters equally playful and child-like, while real. Kindergarten Ramona happily "trip-traps" around the new boots she eventually receives and finds joy in something as simple as mud in Ramona the Pest. "She waded through the wet lawn, and her boots became even shinier when they were wet. She stamped in all the little puddles on the driveway. She stood in the gutter and let muddy water run over the toes...She gathered wet leaves to dam the gutter, so she could stand in deeper water...'Look at all that nice mud,' she said, pointing to the area that was to be the parking lot for the new market. It was such nice mud, rich and brown with puddles and little rivers in the tire tracks...It was the best mud, the muddiest mud, the most tempting mud" (Cleary 114). It takes a special verbal talent to express the excitement young people can find in dirt, but a child-like mind is required to first remember and understand it. Similarly, Cleary is cognizant of the way children talk, using colloquial speech when designing their dialogue--instead of oddly proper and formal language. "Let go my sash," says Ellen angrily when her new dress is repeatedly tugged in Ellen Tebbits (Cleary 116). "Mrs. Cleary...shows readers the power words have for children...[every second grader] is very fond of an onomatopoetic word, [like] Boing! which Ramona imagines is the noise Susan's curls would make if they were pulled" (Chatton 297). Along the same vein, she is aware of the importance of humor to keep her young readers amused; life is funny, and no one knows that better than kids. When Ramona misunderstands her teacher's meaning for the word present, thinking a gift is coming her way until she learns the word's alternate definition, she laments, "Words were so puzzling. Present should mean present just as attack should mean to stick tacks in people" (Cleary Ramona the Pest 27). Later, she tries to think of insulting names to call her friend Howie who has fallen from her favor: "Pieface wasn't bad enough...Perhaps 'little booby boy' would do" (Cleary, Ramona the Pest 58). "A lot of funny ha-ha things happen in Cleary's books, but her real specialty is another kind of funny, which is a cross between funny ha-ha and funny ahhh. Cleary has the rare gift of being able to reveal us to ourselves while still keeping an arm around our shoulder. We laugh (ha-ha) to recognize that funny, peculiar, smaller self we were and are and then laugh (ahhh) with relief that we've been understood at last" (Babbitt 18).

However, perhaps the most powerful use of Beverly Cleary's child-like mind in the emotional realm is her ability to capture strong feelings--like the horror and fright that all children experience many times in their young lives. "[Ellen] was so angry she acted without thinking. Dropping her erasers, she grabbed Austine's sash and yanked with all her strength. There was a ripping sound. The bow not only came untied but, to Ellen's horror, one end of the sash tore loose from the dress and hung limply in her hand. Austine whirled and faced Ellen. Her cheeks were red and her eyes blazed. Ellen was frightened. She wanted to run, but somehow she could not move...What had she done now? What would Austine do to her?" (Cleary, Ellen Tebbits 156).

One of a child's most important assets is her or his ability to adapt: to new homes, new schools, new family arrangements. Beverly Cleary, the eternal child, had a strong talent for adapting through the decades as a prodigious writer. She could continue to change her domain because she evolved with the changes of American culture. In Cleary's 1955 book Beezus and Ramona, as in 1951's Ellen Tebbits, the girls are perpetually in dresses. To sign up for a library card, one must divulge the occupation of one's father. Two dollars and fifty cents "bought a lot." Ramona chants that she wants to play Tiddlywinks, and their mother is the conventional housewife. "'Oh, Aunt Beatrice,' exclaimed Beezus, as she opened her first [birthday] package. It was a real grown-up sewing box" (Cleary, Beezus and Ramona 145). 1968's Ramona the Pest continues to portray Ramona's mother, Mrs. Quimby, as a housewife, while the girls are still donning dresses daily as they are escorted across the street by crossing guard boys. However, in Ramona the Brave, published in 1975, Ramona and Beezus have evolved to the point of wearing jeans and T-shirts, their mother to slacks. The information highway is beginning: "Ramona worked happily, humming a tune from a television commercial" (Cleary 30). It is of notice that Mrs. Quimby gets a job in a doctor's office to pay for a new addition to the house; Mr. Quimby is heard "rattling dishes and singing" (Cleary 160). In 1980, Ramona and Her Father won the Young Reader's Choice Award; it is a novel in which Mr. Quimby loses his job, is tormented by Ramona to stop smoking for health reasons, and relies upon his wife's salary to support the family. "Mrs. Cleary's six other Ramona books, written between 1955 and 1984, follow Ramona into the fourth grade, and as Ramona changes, so does the cozy world of Klickitat street. Twenty-seven years ago, in Ramona the Pest, Ramona's mother was walking her to kindergarten, but in later books...Ramona's father has lost his job and her mother has gone to work. Ramona's troubles have changed...to worries about whether her father's smoking will kill him and how the family will pay its bills" (Klass 40).

If Beverly Cleary had continued to write about the era in which she was raised--and even the decades in which her own children were--she would have stagnated. Children appreciate her older books now because of their timeless richness and humor; however, if Cleary had proceeded with this old-fashioned American culture contained in her earliest stories, her 60's, 70's, and 80's books would have lost their impact on the domain as the times changed. Her imaginative, empathetic books set examples for upcoming authors like Judy Blume and Anne Martin; they were chronicles of American life, providing real insights into language and learning from the perspective of children within a modern setting. Timeliness held true to every book as it was published, even though Cleary was fifty-two when Ramona the Pest was written, and sixty-eight when Ramona Forever hit the bookstores. How did she continue to adapt to changing times in her books when she no longer had connections to children in these decades? She incorporated her experiences as a young person into modern problems; the Depression she witnessed in 1929 translated into financial difficulties in the Quimby household, forcing Mr. Quimby to take jobs he didn't like, and forcing him out of work altogether. Because Cleary was child-like and adapted, she could, in turn, continue to change her domain; thus, she made herself a lasting influence.

"Thanksgiving. Relatives are coming to dinner. The oak pedestal table is stretched to its limit and covered with a silence cloth and white damask. The sight of that smooth, faintly patterned cloth fills me with longing. I find a bottle of blue ink, pour it out at one end of the table, and dip my hands into it. Pat-a-pat, pat-a-pat, all around the table I go, inking hand prints on that smooth white cloth. I do not recall what happened when aunts, uncles, and cousins arrived. All I recall is my satisfaction in marking with ink on that white surface" (Cleary, A Girl from Yamhill 7).

It seems that a very young Beverly Cleary knew instinctively that she would one day be needed to leave her hand prints on the needful surface of American children's literature. That childish mind that drove her to curiously and playfully leave her inky mark all over the tablecloth is the same one that enabled her to continue to leave her mark throughout her life. "Her gallery of characters...now roam securely and absolutely across the landscape of American children's literature" (Klass 40). Cleary started life maturely, and was aware of her goals and talents; when it came time, she applied them in a fun and imaginative way. Her extraordinary talent for capturing the essence of childhood through detail and humor endear children across the world to her. Because she could adapt, Cleary has not stopped impressing and expressing since her first book in the early 1950's. She sums up her secret in one sentence: "'The proper subject of the novel is universal human experience'" (Cleary, On My Own 120). Beverly Cleary's characters are not, as so many other authors' are, the heroes and heroines she would have liked to have been; they are the way she--the way every child--is. They are brave, strong, loving, often puzzled, and sometimes unhappy, but hopeful. The entire domain of American children's literature owes a debt to Beverly Cleary and her child-like mind for bringing this concept to life for the first, second, and now third generation of her devoted readers--and for letting the Bob's and Susie's of the arena quietly die in mature attic trunks.

Bedford, Annie. Susie's New Stove. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1950.

Chatton, Barbara. "Ramona and her Neighbors." Horn Book Magazine. May 1995: 297.

Cleary, Beverly. A Girl from Yamhill. New York: William Morrow, 1988.

-. Beezus and Ramona. New York: William Morrow, 1955.

-. Ellen Tebbits. New York: William Morrow, 1951.

-. On My Own Two Feet. New York: Morrow Junior Books, 1995.

-. Ramona the Brave. New York: William Morrow, 1975.

-. Ramona the Pest. New York: William Morrow, 1968.

Dolch, Edward. Dog Stories. Champaign: Garrard, 1954.

Gardner, Howard. Creating minds. New York: Basic books, 1993.

Klass, Perri. "To Think It Happened on Klickitat Street." New York Times 12 Nov. 1995, sec. 7: 40.