A Tribute to Beverly Cleary
The scene that still fills me with a palpable sense of outrage at injustice is from Ramona the Brave. Ramona and her classmates have been assigned a project making paper bag owls. Ramona has come up with a creative way to draw owls, one that will distinguish her artwork from the others on Parents’ Night. When she discovers that the teacher's pet has stolen her idea and copied her creativity, she destroys both owls, an act for which she is forced to apologize in front of the entire class the next day.
When I read of the passing of Beverly Cleary at the age of 104 this past March, this was the scene that I immediately recalled: a forced, public apology for an act of justified anger. Indeed, after reading tribute after tribute to Cleary, I now understand why. This is a classic example of Beverly Cleary’s writing. In her own childhood, she often experienced literature for children as being extremely didactic. Beverly Cleary once said that she thought people loved Ramona because "she does not learn to be a better girl" -- in other words, because it was the opposite of the didactic literature of her youth and instead often showed empathy for the emotions of children.
As I read through various obituaries and tributes to Cleary, it became obvious that commentators who loved her writing felt that it was necessary to point out that Cleary’s books were quite groundbreaking and even subversive when they arrived on the scene precisely because they broke from the moralistic tone of books written for children.
While I appreciate this point, as a Catholic interested in the ability of literature to form the moral imagination of children, I felt it necessary to state that I have other reasons for appreciating Beverly Cleary’s writing. First of all, Cleary’s books never go to extremes. Against the overly didactic world of pre-Cleary children's literature, there often creeps another extreme in today's culture. Kay Hymowitz, in her provocative book, Ready or Not: What Happens When We Treat Children As Small Adults calls it "naturalism," and identifies it with ideas that came about at the beginning of the 20th century related to romanticism. Naturalists saw children as “naturally capable, fully conscious and intentional.” Adults just needed to get out of the way as children were basically their moral superiors.
Flannery O'Connor was arguing against naturalism when she once described the job of the high school English teacher, stating, "He will teach literature, not social studies or little lessons in democracy or the customs of many lands. And if the student finds that this is not to his taste? Well, that is regrettable. Most regrettable. His taste should not be consulted; it is being formed." While Cleary does not write didactic literature, she does not go to the opposite extreme of romanticizing children or imagining them to be somehow the moral superiors of adults. Indeed, Ramona never does “learn to be a better child,” but she does become adept in dealing with the unexpected, eventually earning her the nickname "Ramona the Brave."
In one of my childhood favorites, Muggie Maggie, a thoughtful teacher comes up with a gentle plot to entice third grader Maggie to learn to write in cursive. In classic Cleary fashion, the resistance of a third grader to learning cursive handwriting is dealt with realism and a good dose of humor. Maggie does learn to write cursive beautifully and more than that, she learns to want to learn, thanks to the quiet intervention of a wise teacher. In Cleary’s world, adults ought to be kind, they ought to be respectful of children and their emotions – but they remain adults, entrusted with the formation of children.
"Stories," says Professor Vigen Guroian, "…are the most effective means of engendering a moral imagination that respects rules and obeys laws." Cleary never mentions Original Sin, but it is clear that her characters inhabit a fallen world. Nobody is perfect - not even adults, Ramona's dad poignantly tells her - life is not always fair and sometimes it can be dark. But by showing us reality as children see it, Beverly Cleary showed us that there is also grace. In her stories, grace and redemption usually take the form of humor, ingenuity and, most especially, the possibility of responding to these circumstances with bravery. For these reasons, those interested in the Catholic imagination should appreciate the contributions of Beverly Cleary to children’s literature.
Barbara Gonzalez is an Associate Editor for Dappled Things, a grant writer, and a mother, writing from Haymarket, Virginia.
