I am a big fan of children’s literature and have always love Beverly Cleary’s books from the time I was a young child, so it was fun to read about her life and how it came about that she wrote children’s books and where she found many of her ideas for her stories. An added dimension was the fact that she was working to educate herself during the depression and with the added burden of a mother who wasn’t exactly supportive of her efforts in education or her social life.

Funny enough I was reading this at the same time as reading Roald Dahl’s autobiography (actually both of them wrote 2 autobiographies each, one of their childhoods and one of their young adulthoods), another children’s literature author and who lived during the same time as Beverly Cleary. It was interesting to read how each of them experienced the same time frame but from two different parts of the world. Both authors and all 4 books were wonderfully written and very engaging. I highly recommend them all!